 On entertainment news now the National Commission for Museum and Moment, Monument Rider has launched the ancient rock art exhibition of photos and monoliths that have been existing for decades found in the forests of southern and northern Nigeria. This project is supported by the U.S. Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation and led by Trust for African Rock Art to Apple TV. Correspondent Paul George was at the National Museum Lagos in our reports. The exhibition launched which had natural entities from different parts of Nigeria and abroad showcased a slice of Nigeria's cultural dance by the Cross River Group, entertaining guests. In the gallery is a display of pictures of collections of paintings and monoliths from Acom, Cross River, Jigawa and Balchi states. The director general of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments Professor Abba Tujani. In his welcome address thank the U.S. Embassy for supporting the project by funding the project and thereby preserving the country's cultural heritage. I want to start by expressing my appreciation to the U.S. Embassy for their partnership but also providing us with funding the collaboration on rock art, the monolith, the rock paintings in Jigawa and Balchi. It's just the beginning. I look forward to more collaboration in areas of digitization and capacity building. The United States Actings Council General Brandon Ospert while assuring Nigeria of their continuous support said that this partnership will follow deep in the ties both countries already have. Over the past four years we've seen $770,000 of funding going toward preservation projects in Nigeria. In 2017 we funded a project to document the traditional knowledge of the IFA cultural system in Oyo State and in 2016 we also conducted a project to build the capacity of Nigeria's museum professionals to improve collections, storage and display. The curator of National Museum Lagos Omotayo Adiboye and the project manager of the exhibition Terry Little tells us more about the artworks. The ancient art rock actually represents the heritage in rocks. They are granite rocks which they put coded messages on and they use it to pass messages to people that are initiates. So if you look at some of those eco-monoliths you will see on them some motifs. We've been working on this project for two years documenting archaeological sites in Cross River State, the monoliths that you see in the exhibition and then paintings in Jigawa and Bouchie States. I think whenever we're in the field we work very closely with the chiefs and the community representatives and follow whatever instructions they may give us on how to deal with them and often yes they may pay poor libation. The rock art exhibition is built for a tour from Lagos to the museum in Calabar and Ontario and as the event winds down Consul General Ospert cut the ribbon to officially declare the gallery open even as estates gather to feed their eyes with the new collections of the artworks. Paul George plus TV News. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.