(XINHUA)

A technician conducts a laser scan of a Thousand-Hand Buddha among rock carvings in Dazu County in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality on April 18. On the same day Chongqing began constructing a museum for the centuries-old rock carvings.

The Dazu rock carvings could date back to the ninth to 13th centuries and represented the highest level of grotto carving art in the world at that time. There are more than 50,000 individual rock carvings in the grottoes. In 1999, the site was placed on the World Heritage List by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

The Thousand-Hand Buddha is one of the site's best-known Buddhist statues, and was produced about 800 years ago during the Southern Song Dynasty (1127- 1279).