The announcement was made on January 7 on the New 7 Wonders’ (N7W) website. To earn the elusive status, 261 national and international sites will vie to make it into the top 77.

The Mekong River, which flows China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar was nominated by six countries.

Voting will go on until July 7, 2009. Finalists will be chosen by the N7W Panel of Experts for short listing.

Twenty-one sites will be chosen in July 2009 to go forward to the next stage of voting.

The final voting stage will take place between 2010 and 2011. During this time, the N7W World Tour will visit all 21 sites. The N7W of Nature will be unveiled in the summer of 2011.

During the first phase of the campaign, which ran from July 2007 to December 31, 2008, three of Vietnam’s tourist hot spots were nominated, including Halong Bay, Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park and Fansipan Mountain.

The ancient road, found 0.5m beneath the ground, is about 1.2m wide and 1.5m high with its length yet been identified. The road foundation was built with bricks and lime.

According to the Hoi An Relic Management and Preservation Centre, this is possibly part of sluice-gates dated back 300 years.

The Temple of Literature’s director Dang Kim Ngoc said the proposal was part of a worldwide programme, Memory of the World, to document heritage.

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 UN’s final proposal should be completed by September, which considering the mount of research on the steles over many years, should not be difficult, Ngoc told Vietnam News.

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

The steles 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 decorative patterns on Vietnam’s steles are more diversified.

“Each of the steles at the temple can be considered as a perfect sculptural work,” he said.

“The characters and meanings in the steles are highly regarded for their literature and artistic thought.”

UNESCO has suggested changing the proposed title of the artifacts from Doctor Laureates steles at Vietnam’s Temple of Literature to 82 Doctor Laureates Steles of Le and Mac dynasties.”

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.

Thousands people have flocked to Doi Son Commune, Duy Tien District, on February 1 to witness buffaloes ploughing the first furrows for the new year, wishing for bumper harvests, and a prosperous life.

Addressing the launching ceremony, Vice State President Nguyen Thi Doan applauded the province’s idea to restore the festival to retell historical stories and encourage farmers in production.

The festival was launched with a drum performance by a team of drummers from Doi Tam Village which is well-known for making drums.

Besides various rituals, the festival also included colourful sports and cultural activities, particularly a buffalo-decorating contest.

According to historical books, in 987, the first king of the Le Dynasty, Le Dai Hanh, came to Doi Son to plough fields with an aim of encouraging farmers to work hard and extending agriculture. The event then became a fine tradition in springs during the following dynasties.