An employee carefully packages a cultural relic in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, April 24, 2014. [Photo/hsw.cn]

Some of the famous Terracotta Warriors of the Qin Dynasty from China's city of Xi'an in Shaanxi province will travel abroad to be exhibited at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis (TCMI) in USA from May 10 to November 2. The exhibition will display 265 items among which 18 are first-class cultural relics.

However, the shipping process is not easy. Let's have a look at what these national treasures have to go through when shipped overseas.

According to a representative from the Shaanxi Cultural Heritage Promotion Center, if the cultural relics are going to be exhibited overseas, preparation has to be made two to three years in advance.

First, an exhibition plan has to be made such as deciding which items will be shown. Next, the plan has to be approved by China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage. Once approved, foreign experts, who are from the country where the exhibition will be held, will travel to China and examine the relics before they are handed over.

The inspection process takes a great deal of time and needs to be very careful. Experts from both sides will record the details of the examined relics, including cracks and stains, and then make a bilingual record of the results.

After the handover, the relics need to be packed with acid-free paper and put into special boxes which have a PE board inside to absorb shock and prevent moisture. The transport carts for the national treasures have a dampening device and are not allowed to travel faster than 60-80 kilometers per hour on land.

After the exhibition in a foreign country, the relics will go through the same process before coming back to where they are stored in China.

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