Pho Hien stelae and Non Nuoc cliff inscriptions take Viet Nam's UNESCO documentary heritage count to 13
5 November 2026
Two Vietnamese collections were added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Asia-Pacific Regional Register on November 5.
MOWCAP, UNESCO's Memory of the World Committee for Asia and the Pacific, took the decision at its 11th General Meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The first is the Inscriptions on the Stelae of Pho Hien in Hung Yen province: 41 stelae in Chinese and Nom scripts recording a once-busy trading port.
The second is the Ma Nhai inscriptions on Non Nuoc Mountain in Ninh Binh province: 43 cliff stelae carved straight into the rock between the 14th and 20th centuries.
They carry poems, royal writings and historical records, including a work by Truong Han Sieu carved in 1343.
Viet Nam now has 13 entries under the Memory of the World Program: four on the International Register and nine on the Asia-Pacific Regional Register.
In plain words
MOWCAP Memory of the World Committee for Asia and the Pacific — UNESCO's regional committee that keeps the Asia-Pacific register of documentary heritage.
Nom Chu Nom, Vietnamese demotic script — A script based on Chinese characters used to write the Vietnamese language before the modern Latin-based script.