Report on Safeguarding the Remains of the Buddha Statues, 2008

Abstract

The clay surfaces of the Eastern Buddha that survived the blowing-up of the statue in 2001 had been spot-bonded to the back wall in 2004 as part of an emergency stabilisation measure.1 These works could only be carried out by abseiling with a rope, because a scaffold had not yet been put up. In 2008, it was now possible to fix these original clay plaster surfaces. For this purpose the scaffold was extended with bracket-shaped cantilevers to get close enough to the clay plaster fragments. These two fragment areas can be found on the left side under the former arm of the Buddha, at a height of 9.6 m and measuring 15 square metres, and on the right side along a fold of the gown, slightly inside the other arm, at a height of 9.0 m and measuring six square metres.