Thousand-hand Guanyin Statue Opens to Public after Years of Restoration

An ancient Qianshou Guanyin (thousand-hand Buddhism Goddess of Mercy) statue was opened to the public on Saturday after over seven years of survey and restoration at a stone carving site in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. Carved in the and Dazu Stone Carving site on Mount Baoding, the statue with gold foil dates back to some 800 year ago during the Southern Song Dynasty (1127 to 1279 A.D.). It is China's biggest stone statue with an integration of stone carving, colored painting, and enamel and gold foil coatings. Restoration work of the statue which had long been in disrepair started in April, 2011. Hailed as the “No. 1 Project“ of ancient stone carving protection, restoration of the statue combined a string of technologies like three-dimensional laser scanning, X-ray detection of destruction and three-dimensional printing. “We defined it as the 'No. 1 Project' because it was an unprecedented project.