Twenty Pakistani university students gathered around rocks and boulders inscribed with ancient writing in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa last month to learn from a Japanese researcher how to use smartphones and cameras to photograph them.
The fieldwork, involving Atsushi Noguchi of the Japanese Center for South Asian Cultural Heritage, came after his Tokyo-based nonprofit organization recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Hazara University to set up a center to document Pakistan's archaeological heritage.
Their cooperation may have begun modestly, but it has the potential to grow into a premier project, given the need of the hour for both development and for preservation and protection of sites important to world heritage.