File photo of the Palace Museum.

The Palace Museum has signed a cooperation agreement with the German Archaeological Institute that will see the bodies join forces in developing cultural heritage protection.

Between now and 2019 the two will research comparisons between the archaeology and restoration of palace ruins at the Forbidden City and the Royal Palace in Rome and a comparison between Chinese and European royal artworks.

Officials from the Palace Museum said cooperation aims to explore the working methods for archaeology and historical research at both theoretical and practical levels.

Meanwhile, under the national strategy of the Belt and Road Initiative, the Palace Museum plans to carry out archaeological cooperation with countries in Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and South Africa.

There are more than 1.8 million collections in the Palace Museum. Most have not been collected from field archaeology and the undertaking will be a way for researchers to reexamine items using lessons learned from field archaeology.

Since the 1950s, the Palace Museum has carried out archaeological works on construction and porcelain kilns. In following years, researchers investigated constructions, furniture, utensils and clothes in ancient paintings as well as traditional royal jade articles. They also cooperated with local archaeological research institutions to prospect and excavate ruins of porcelain kilns and Buddhist architecture.

In June, 2013, the Palace Museum established its own archaeological research center and carried out exchanges with foreign countries. Researchers participated in the excavation of an ancient port in Tuticorin, India, and two Buddhist sites in Visakhapatnam, India.

The German Archaeological Institute is one of the most ancient archaeology research institutes in the world. Researchers have focused on relationships among civilizations from grasslands in Europe and Asia in recent years.