Monument inscriptions in Han (Chinese characters) and Nom (old Vietnamese script based on Chinese characters) at the royal citadel in Hue will be submitted to the UNESCO for recognition under World Document Heritage criteria.

The compilation of application documents the inscriptions and other necessary work are expected to be completed and submitted to UNESCO by 2015, according to the Hue Monuments Conservation Centre.

The Han-Nom carved scripts are reported at relics throughout Vietnam , but such a large quantity of inscriptions in verse and prose are only found in relics in the ancient imperial city of Hue .

The royal citadel treasures more than 4,000 Han-Nom works in verses and prose, including poems and celebratory eulogies carved on palaces, steles, mausoleums and other monuments.

The most notable are poems celebrating spring, which are carved on Ngo Mon (Noon gate) and on the roof of Thai Hoa Palace .

Other highlights are a series of gilded poems in the palace presumably written by a number of kings about the country's independence, sovereignty, peace and prosperity.

One of the poems is seen as a declaration of independence of the Nguyen Dynasty, the country's last feudal regime.

The poem reads: The country has a civilisation of thousands of years/ its territory stretches thousands of miles/ Ever since its establishment under the Hong Bang Family/ the country is prosperous and mighty.

Historians and experts, who have praised the poem's value, said they were an important part of the soul of Hue when it was the royal capital of the country.

Earlier, the Hue relic system and the “Nha Nhac Cung Dinh Hue” (Hue Royal Court Music) were recognised by UNESCO as a world cultural heritage site in 1993 and the intangible cultural heritage of human kind in 2003, respectively.-VNA