In January 2016, during President Xi's visit to Saudi Arabia, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage signed a memorandum of understanding with the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage to promote comprehensive bilateral cooperation in the cultural heritage sector.

The exchange of exhibitions by the two capital cities of the respective countries is only a part of this joint framework, according to Xie Bing, director of the SACH foreign communications department.

Meanwhile, from March to April this year, archaeologists from the National Center of Underwater Cultural Heritage conducted a joint research project with Saudi experts on al-Serrian, the ruins of an ancient port city near Mecca, which boomed between the 9th and 13th centuries.

"Achievements in the underwater excavation work have gone far beyond our expectations," Xie says. "Many crucial pieces of evidence about the Maritime Silk Road were unearthed during the archaeological survey."

Chinese porcelain pieces from the Song and Yuan dynasties were found at the ruins.

Some of the newest findings from al-Serrian will also be displayed at the exhibition in Riyadh alongside artifacts supplied by Chinese museums for comparison.

For example, a bronze counterweight from al-Serrian will be juxtaposed with an counterpart from the Nanhai One, the sunken wreck of a Song Dynasty merchant ship discovered in the South China Sea.

Xie also says that the project in al-Serrian will mark the start of a five-year archaeological cooperation program between the two countries, and more projects－both undersea and land-bound－are due to follow.

He also says that cooperation on cultural heritage will expand to cover more fields, such as staff training, development of protection technologies, fighting the illicit trade of cultural relics and museum management.

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