This was announced at the fourth general meeting of UNESCO’s Memory of the World Committee for Asia/Pacific in Macau, China, on March 9, said the Hanoi People’s Committee.

The UNESCO recognition is an important event for the capital city of Hanoi on the threshold of its 1,000th birthday.

The 82 stone steles are carved with the names of 2,313 doctors who passed the court examinations between 1442 and 1779 (some material recorded the period between 1484 and 1514) under the Early Le, Mac and Late Le dynasties.

The steles which bear the names of Trang Nguyen, Bang Nhan, Tham Hoa, Hoang Giap (the first, second, third and fourth winning categories at the royal competition) sit on top of stone turtles.

The steles are different from those in other Asian countries, including China, which influenced Vietnamese feudal education.

They are mainly rectangular parallelepipes (a polyhedron consisting of six faces that are parallelograms) while the Chinese have varied forms, including square parallelepipes and cylinders.

The Temple of Literature was founded in 1070 as a Confucian temple. Parts of the complex date to the earliest period, although much of the architecture dates from the Ly (1010-1225) and Tran (1225-1400) dynasties.

In 1076, Vietnam’s first university, the Quoc Tu Giam or Imperial Academy, was established within the temple to educate bureaucrats, nobles, royalty and the elite.

The university functioned from 1076 to 1779. The doctor laureate tests were extremely difficult, so few students passed. Each year, the names of those who did were engraved on the steles.

At its booth at the fair, VNAT will introduce international friends to Vietnam’s famous tourist sites, the Thang long-Hanoi millennium anniversary and the National Tourism Year 2010, with the aim of attracting more German tourists to the country.

VNAT has issued an official document to design, advertisement and event organisation companies asking them to select a unit for consultancy, design and construction of its booth at the fair.

Germany is one of Vietnam’s key markets in the Vietnam tourism destination promotion programme this year.

Deputy Director General of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) Hoang Thi Diep delivered the statement at a reception held on March 10 on the sidelines of the ongoing travel trade show in Berlin (ITB Berlin).

Vietnamese Ambassador in Germany Do Hoa Binh, representatives from Vietnamese tourist companies and the national flagship carrier Vietnam Airlines and international friends attended the reception.

Vietnam this year will organise a number of festivities, such as the Hue Festival 2010 and the 1,000th anniversary of Thang Long-Hanoi, promising to fascinate visitors, Diep went on to say.

The annual show attracted the participation of more than 40 Vietnamese tourist companies including big names such as Vietravel, Saigontourist and Mailinhtourism.

Right on the first day, many of them had reportedly secured contracts with foreign partners.

ITB Berlin is the world’s leading travel and trade show. This year, it is luring over 11,120 tourist businesses from 187 countries and territories. At least 170,000 officials, entrepreneurs and visitors are expected to join the show.

The 11-day exhibition showcases almost 100 photos chronicling the daily lives of fishermen on Halong Bay along with 200 objects including fishing tools, pottery, Dai La bricks and a clay tower dating back to the 10th century. The remains of marine animals are also on display at the event.

Over the past 1,000 years, the influence of Hanoi on Halong City to the northeast, as well as the influence of Halong on the nation’s capital, Thang Long - Hanoi, has created a rich and unique culture for both.

Numerous objects under the Dinh, Pre-Le, Ly and Tran dynasties have been discovered in Tuan Chau, Quang Ninh Province while the Ly Dynasty from the Thang Long capital set up the Van Don trading port in Quang Ninh, which opened the way for economic and cultural exchange.