Feature: Stepping into timeless Liangzhu where civilizations meet across borders

HANGZHOU, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- As rain misted the over 5,000-year-old Liangzhu Archaeological Ruins, the vibrant traditional attire of Maria Guadalupe Espinosa Rodriguez, director of the Chichen Itza archaeological site in Mexico, provided a striking visual metaphor for a dialogue between civilizations.

"It's my first time in China, and I'm very glad to be here. It's such a beautiful country with remarkable historical sites and heritage," she said.

Inside the park, the "Cultural Roots: Timeless Wisdom and Contemporary Value of Ancient Civilizations" forum, a sideline event of the third Liangzhu Forum, was underway, bringing together experts and scholars from Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan, Mexico and other countries to Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province.

Against the backdrop of Liangzhu -- a site that embodies China's 5,000-year-old civilization -- the participants explored new paths of dialogue and cooperation, seeking ways to jointly safeguard the roots of human heritage in the modern era.

"I believe this is one of the most important sites in the world, because the museum, the infrastructure, and the installations all have the characteristics of a true World Heritage Site," she said.

Espinosa Rodriguez, a renowned specialist in archaeological site management, was among several international delegates who visited Liangzhu not as tourists, but to deepen their understanding of the site.

For a scholar whose career spans excavation trenches, museum galleries and large-scale heritage management, Liangzhu offered a concentrated lesson in the intricate art of conservation, with monuments, museums, visitor centers, buffer zones and urban surroundings all coordinated to safeguard a site she described as "a leading example for our times."

That blend of historical depth and contemporary management is exactly what drew experts to the forum which concluded Monday.

Liangzhu is more than a collection of pottery and polished stone; it is an archaeological landscape whose Neolithic achievements, including early wet-rice agriculture, advanced jade carving and emerging social complexity, helped shape East Asian civilization.

"Now I understand why Liangzhu is one of the most important cultures in China," Espinosa Rodriguez said.

What impressed her most during the site tour was what she described as Liangzhu's rare combination of proximity to urban areas and thoughtful protective design.

Unlike many world heritage sites that are isolated from modern life, Liangzhu sits near a growing city, yet planners have created a substantial buffer of forests, pathways and interpretive zones to shield the archaeological site from urban pressures.

"The buffer is very important because it's very close to the city," Espinosa Rodriguez said. "The integration of the heritage area with the surrounding forest is excellent. Something that many sites around the world simply don't have."

When asked how stories of ancient civilizations could foster connections between people from different countries, she spoke of the shared human curiosity that drives archaeology. "Archaeology is an exciting field," she said, "because it helps us uncover the work of the past, understand the present, and plan for the future."

She believes that through exhibitions, guided tours and storytelling, people everywhere can connect over the same fundamental questions about how our ancestors worked, worshiped, farmed and created. These narratives, she said, link Liangzhu's ancient rice fields and polished jade artifacts to the early civilizations that once flourished across the world.

By the time Espinosa Rodriguez left the park, she took with her more than just impressions. She carried plans, including ideas for carrying-capacity studies to pilot in Mexico, protocols for buffer-zone design to test at smaller sites, and a renewed conviction that archaeology's most urgent task is not merely to catalogue the past but to preserve it in a way that remains meaningful for future generations.

If heritage is a conversation across time, the forum showed that it can also be a conversation across borders, practical, sometimes heated, but ultimately rooted in a shared commitment to keeping the world's earliest stories alive. ■