TAIPEI -- An exhibition of 130 valuable Tibetan antiques and artworks from the mainland opened to visitors at Taipei Palace Museum Thursday.

The "Tibet -- Treasures from the Roof of the World" exhibition will run until September 19.

The collections came from 12 museums and Tibetan Buddhist monasteries on the mainland, including the Potala Palace, Norbulingka (the summer residence of the Dalai Lama), the Tibet Museum in Lhasa, the temples in the imperial resort of Chengde and the museum of Cultural Palace of Nationalities in Beijing, according to the museum.

"All of the exhibits have never been to Taiwan before. We hope to provide a feast of Tibetan culture for Taiwan people, so that they will have a better understanding of our culture and the progress we made in maintaining our traditions and protecting cultural relics," said Yudawa, vice chairman of Tibet Association of Collectors and head of the Tibetan cultural heritage department.

The exhibition was also expected to boost cooperation in cultural heritage protection, said Yudawa, who is in Taipei for the exhibition.

"These collections seldom open to visitors, but our mainland partners were very generous to lend their treasures," said Kung-shin Chou, the museum's director, at a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

Although Tibet was a popular travel destination for many Taiwan people, it remained mysterious due to its unique culture, religion and language, she said. "I believe, through this exhibition, they will have a new understanding of Tibet."

The exhibition is made up of four sections, introducing a strong Tibetan kingdom in the seventh Century, Tibetan Buddhist art, exchanges between Tibet and the rest of China as well as Tibetan customs.

The exhibits include Buddhist statues, ritual instruments, traditional musical instruments, sutra manuscripts, Thangka paintings, medical books and traditional daily appliance.

Among them there is a gilt bronze statue of Buddha with a height of 1.6 meters made in the 11th or 12th Century. The statue, beautifully decorated with turquoise, silver and copper inlay, had been placed in the main hall of the Potala Palace before being shipped to Taipei.

Another unique artwork is a 40-cm-high gilded-bronze figure of Songtsen Gampo, the king who unified Tibet in the 7th Century. A large number of the existing statues of the king are clay, making the bronze figure very rare. It was likely to have been made in the 13th or 14th Century.

The relics toured five Japanese cities from April 11 last year until May 30 this year, attracting more than 500,000 visitors.