Chinese craft book series released in Beijing

A 20-volume book series on Chinese traditional crafts has been released in Beijing.

The series, released on April 28, 2017, contains 14,000 pictures and took340 editors 20 years to finish.

The books' topics cover traditional Chinese medicine, as well as wine making and silk dying, and the techniques are spelt out in about 12 million words. The series, in total, records about 600 crafts across 14 major categories.

Prior to 2017, from 2009 to 2016, the series on bronze and silver ware crafts, as well as paper, ink and porcelain making, were released.

Traditional Chinese crafts are considered an important part of intangible cultural heritage, and have had been protected by the Chinese government since 2013.

Now, among 1,372 National Intangible Cultural Heritages, 400 are traditional crafts.