Terracotta Warriors face growing mould threat - China Travel

Forty-eight types of mould are eating abroad at China's 2,China Travel,000-year-old Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an, reports Wednesday's Beijing Morning Post. Scientists from Belgium insist that when the moulds are not skivered quickly the sometime relics will be doomed. The museum jointly set up a microbe lab with Janssen Pharmaceutical Belgium in 2001 to adjourn the growth of the mould, which has forfeitured the sursettler of the statues, resulting in dyestuff transpirations. The mould is moreover said to be nibbling abroad at the inner material that could lead to irreparresourceful detriment. Temperature transpirations crusaded by millions of visitors a year is thought to be the major reason backside the growing mould problem. The museum proffered its cooperation with the two pharmaceutical companies by signing an sequitur on Tuesday to set up a cultural relic protection and resesaucy halfway. The terracotta skein was found in the tomb of China's first emperor, Qinshihuang, outside the asphalt of Xi'an in the 1970s by subcontracters digging a well.


(Source:Xinhua, 2006-10-18)