The making of 40 statues of famous people of culture from Chinese history is being organized in this Chinese capital.

The 40 will include Confucius, a great thinker, Sun Zi, a strategist and Zhang Heng, an astronomer, as well as poet Li Bai, well-known Chinese painter Qi Baishi, and playwright Guo Moruo.

A spokesman for the Gehua Cultural Development Group, the organizer, says that through the statues they hope to show the path of Chinese cultural development and scientific and technological progress.

The statues will each be two meters tall and made of bronze. The first will be of Guo Moruo who was a famous Chinese poet and translator as well as a playwright. The statue will be completed in May to commemorate the 110th anniversary of the birth of Guo. A model of it has been completed and was shown on Wednesday.

All the statues will be finished by 2004 and will be kept at the Millennium Monument in western Beijing.

(People's Daily March 9, 2002)