عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Culture

Literature, Publishing and Translation Commission Signs Executive Program with China NPPA

The program will encourage the two parties to build bridges of culture, enrich content, and strengthen literary cooperation - SPA
The program will encourage the two parties to build bridges of culture, enrich content, and strengthen literary cooperation - SPA
TT
TT

Literature, Publishing and Translation Commission Signs Executive Program with China NPPA

The program will encourage the two parties to build bridges of culture, enrich content, and strengthen literary cooperation - SPA
The program will encourage the two parties to build bridges of culture, enrich content, and strengthen literary cooperation - SPA

The Literature, Publishing and Translation Commission signed an executive program with the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) in China, for cooperation in the fields of translation, literature and publishing, and translation of prominent classic literature books from Arabic language into Chinese language and vice-versa, and publishing them in both friendly countries.The signing ceremony of the executive program took place at the Riyadh International Book Fair 2023, which is organized by the Literature, Publishing and Translation Commission under the theme "Inspirational Destination" at King Saud University in Riyadh from September 28 to October 7, SPA reported.

The program will encourage the two parties to build bridges of culture, enrich content, and strengthen literary cooperation between the Literature, Publishing and Translation Commission and the National Press and Publication Administration in China in a way that serves the sector and contributes to the development of cultural exchange between the Saudi and Chinese peoples.The program also reflects the keenness of the Ministry of Culture to promote international cultural exchange as one of the strategic goals of Saudi Vision 2023.

Most Viewed

 
 
Culture

Thousands Greet the Winter Solstice at the Ancient Stonehenge Monument

A person holds up a smart phone as they wait for sunrise during the winter Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, England, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Anthony Upton)
A person holds up a smart phone as they wait for sunrise during the winter Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, England, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Anthony Upton)
TT
TT

Thousands Greet the Winter Solstice at the Ancient Stonehenge Monument

A person holds up a smart phone as they wait for sunrise during the winter Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, England, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Anthony Upton)
A person holds up a smart phone as they wait for sunrise during the winter Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, England, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Anthony Upton)

Thousands of tourists, pagans, druids and people simply yearning for the promise of spring marked the dawn of the shortest day of the year at the ancient Stonehenge monument on Saturday.

Revelers cheered and beat drums as the sun rose at 8:09 a.m. (0809 GMT) over the giant standing stones on the winter solstice — the shortest day and the longest night in the Northern Hemisphere. No one could see the sun through the low winter cloud, but that did not deter a flurry of drumming, chanting and singing as dawn broke.

There will be less than eight hours of daylight in England on Saturday — but after that, the days get longer until the summer solstice in June.

The solstices are the only occasions when visitors can go right up to the stones at Stonehenge, and thousands are willing to rise before dawn to soak up the atmosphere.

The stone circle, whose giant pillars each took 1,000 people to move, was erected starting about 5,000 years ago by a sun-worshiping Neolithic culture, according to The AP. Its full purpose is still debated: Was it a temple, a solar calculator, a cemetery, or some combination of all three?

In a paper published in the journal Archaeology International, researchers from University College London and Aberystwyth University said the site on Salisbury Plain, about 128 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of London, may have had political as well as spiritual significance.

That follows from the recent discovery that one of Stonehenge’s stones — the unique stone lying flat at the center of the monument, dubbed the “altar stone” — originated in Scotland, hundreds of miles north of the site. Some of the other stones were brought from the Preseli Hills in southwest Wales, nearly 240 kilometers (150 miles) to the west,

Lead author Mike Parker Pearson from UCL’s Institute of Archaeology said the geographical diversity suggests Stonehenge may have served as a “monument of unification for the peoples of Britain, celebrating their eternal links with their ancestors and the cosmos.”