Search for relics to be launched
Quoted from South China Morning Post, 1981, July 11, p. 12.
Hongkong may find it has more ancient relics of historical interest than has yet been suspected.
The Urban Services Department hopes theses new cultural assets will be uncovered during a territory-wide archaeological survey which will be launched this autumn.
The survey will take two to three years to complete.
And Dr Solomon Bard is hoping large business firms will donate generously.
As executive secretary of the Antiquities and Monuments Section of the Urban Services Department, Dr Bard is not just looking for money.
Donations of equipment that will be needed, such as a Land-Rover, would be just as welcome as cash.
Corporate sponsorship of specific projects will also be welcome.
Dr Bard noted that one of Hongkong's "most important historical relics" - a stone inscribed in 1274 AD during the southern Sung dynasty - is to be protected against weathering and vandalism thanks to a donation to be handed over on Thursday by American Express.
The stone with its 108-character inscription rests on a hillside above the Tin Hau Temple in Joss House Bay and records some of the historyof the temples in the area.
The text was composed by the administrator of the salt field that existed at that time on what is now Kowloon peninsula.