Digital technology is increasingly crucial to the protection of cultural relics, experts in the humanities said here Friday at a workshop.
During the international symposium titled "Digital Images and Visual Arts", which opened Friday, experts from Europe and China discussed the use of digital technology.
Liu Gang, from the Dunhuang Research Institute in northwest China's Gansu Province, said the computer technology which came into use in the early 1990s had perfectly revealed the original color and appearance of the Dunhuang frescos from ancient times.
Vice-Minister of Education Zhao Qinping said that the Internet could boost cultural exchanges among people of different races in different countries.
For instance, he said, Chinese could browse high-definition pictures of Greece and Rome as easily as foreigners view China's Great Wall and terra-cotta warriors.
Violaine Bouvet Lanselle, from the Paris-based Picture Gallery of the Louvre Palace, added that multi-media technology could also help spread artistic knowledge among the average people. In 1999, the gallery produced the world's first DVD on the works of art collected in the Louvre.
Experts also pointed out that if fire broke out in libraries, digital technology could be used to provide a back-up and save valuable documents and data.