Historical Significance
The oldest evidence of human occupation of the area are Neolithic axe heads and similar artifacts found in some of the caves. Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng is home to archeological and historical relics, such as an ancient hieroglyphic script of the Cham ethnic minority. In 1995, the Archeological Institute of Vietnam remarked that Phong Nha cave is probably an extremely important archeological site. This organization suggested that what remained in Bi Ky grotto may have been a Champa mosque from the 9th to 11th century. Inside Phong Nha cave, many Champa style ceramics, earthware vases with lotus-shaped ruby-colored, slight pink mouth.
In 1899, a French missioner, Léopold Cadière surveyed the customs and culture of the local inhabitants living along the Son River. In the letter to École française d'Extrême-Orient, he stated that: "What remains here proves to be valuable for history. To keep it is to help science". In early 20th century, cave explorers and researchers from France and the UK discovered several ancient Champa and Vietnamese relics, such as altar, steles, hieroglyphic script, sculptures, stone statues, Buddha statues, and Chinese artifacts. King Hàm Nghi built a base for the Vietnamese resistance against the French colonialists in the late 19th century.
Read more about this topic: Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park
Famous quotes containing the words historical and/or significance:
“This seems a long while ago, and yet it happened since Milton wrote his Paradise Lost. But its antiquity is not the less great for that, for we do not regulate our historical time by the English standard, nor did the English by the Roman, nor the Roman by the Greek.... From this September afternoon, and from between these now cultivated shores, those times seemed more remote than the dark ages.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)