• Chinese builders use glutinous rice as cement bonding for ancient walls.

Chinese builders use glutinous rice as cement bonding for ancient walls. (Photo : Getty Images)

Workers who are rehabilitating the part of an ancient city wall located in Xinchang in the southwest are using more than regular building materials to keep their cultural heritage intact.

Builders working on the 900-meter city wall in Xichang in the southwestern province of Sichuan are cooking up more glutinous rice porridge than they could consume because they do not intend to eat it.

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In a slideshow of photos presented by CRIEnglish, the workers are seen cooking porridge made from glutinous rice in five massive iron pots which they would use to keep the bricks of the walls together.

According to experts cited by the outlet, glutinous rice is a trade secret in restoration of ancient buildings and infrastructures.

Some 1,500 years ago, during the Ming Dynasty, people of China found out that boiled glutinous rice has the capability to keep a building standing for centuries.

To fix the old wall in Xinchang, the workers mix over 500 kilograms of boiled glutinous rice with lime and alum. Experts estimate that the builders would require about 50 tonnes of glutinous rice to finish the entire project.

This technology has also been used to keep the famous "Great Wall of China" as the glorious symbol of the Asian giant's intense defense both symbolically and literally.

According to Telegraph, glutinous rice is the source of "strength" of the Great Wall, which was also erected around the era of the Ming Dynasty.

"The ancient mortar is a special kind of organic and inorganic mixture. The organic component is amylopectin, which comes from the porridge of sticky rice that was added to the mortar," Zhejiang University Chemistry professor Dr. Zhang Bingjian told Telegraph.

Zhang also dubbed glutinous rice as one of the greatest innovations of the East Asians during the Ming Dynasty.

However, it is considered 100 times more expensive than regular cement, which makes it difficult to use in regular housing nowadays.