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Shanghai Museum Bamboo Slips
The Shanghai Museum bamboo strips () is a collection of ancient Chinese texts from the Chu state dating to the Warring States period and written in ink on strips of bamboo. The texts originated through illegal excavation, probably of a tomb in Hubei or Hunan province. They appeared on the Hong Kong market in 1994, and were acquired by the Shanghai Museum. The large size of the collection and the significance of the texts for scholarship make it one of the most important discoveries of early Chinese texts. The manuscripts have been published in nine volumes by the Shanghai Museum starting in 2001, under the supervision of Ma Chengyuan 馬承源. See also * Guodian Chu Slips * Shuanggudui * Yinqueshan Han Slips * Zhangjiashan Han bamboo texts * Tsinghua Bamboo Slips The Tsinghua Bamboo Strips () are a collection of Chinese texts dating to the Warring States period and written in ink on strips of bamboo, that were acquired in 2008 by Tsinghua University, China. The texts were obt ...
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Chu (state)
Chu, or Ch'u in Wade–Giles romanization, (, Hanyu Pinyin: Chǔ, Old Chinese: ''*s-r̥aʔ'') was a Zhou dynasty vassal state. Their first ruler was King Wu of Chu in the early 8th century BCE. Chu was located in the south of the Zhou heartland and lasted during the Spring and Autumn period. At the end of the Warring States period it was destroyed by the Qin in 223 BCE during the Qin's wars of unification. Also known as Jing () and Jingchu (), Chu included most of the present-day provinces of Hubei and Hunan, along with parts of Chongqing, Guizhou, Henan, Anhui, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai. For more than 400 years, the Chu capital Danyang was located at the junction of the Dan and Xi Rivers near present-day Xichuan County, Henan, but later moved to Ying. The house of Chu originally bore the clan name Nai ( OC: /*rneːlʔ/) which was later written as Mi ( OC: /*meʔ/). They also bore the lineage name Yan ( OC: /*qlamʔ/, /*qʰɯːm/) which would later ...
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Warring States Period
The Warring States period () was an era in History of China#Ancient China, ancient Chinese history characterized by warfare, as well as bureaucratic and military reforms and consolidation. It followed the Spring and Autumn period and concluded with the Qin's wars of unification, Qin wars of conquest that saw the annexation of all other contender states, which ultimately led to the Qin (state), Qin state's victory in 221 BC as the first unified History of China#Imperial China, Chinese empire, known as the Qin dynasty. Although different scholars point toward different dates ranging from 481 BC to 403 BC as the true beginning of the Warring States, Sima Qian's choice of 475 BC is the most often cited. The Warring States era also overlaps with the second half of the Eastern Zhou Period, Eastern Zhou dynasty, though the Chinese sovereign, known as the king of Zhou, ruled merely as a figurehead and served as a backdrop against the machinations of the warring states. The "Warring St ...
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Bamboo And Wooden Slips
Bamboo and wooden slips () were the main media for writing documents in China before the widespread introduction of paper during the first two centuries AD. (Silk was occasionally used, for example in the Chu Silk Manuscript, but was prohibitively expensive for most documents.) The earliest surviving examples of wood or bamboo slips date from the 5th century BC during the Warring States period. However, references in earlier texts surviving on other media make it clear that some precursor of these Warring States period bamboo slips was in use as early as the late Shang period (from about 1250 BC). Bamboo or wooden strips were the standard writing material during the Han dynasty and excavated examples have been found in abundance. Subsequently, the invention of paper by Cai Lun during the Han dynasty began to displace bamboo and wooden strips from mainstream uses, and by the 4th century AD bamboo had been largely abandoned as a medium for writing in China. The long, narrow st ...
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Illicit Antiquities
The antiquities trade is the exchange of antiquities and archaeological artifacts from around the world. This trade may be illicit or completely legal. The legal antiquities trade abides by national regulations, allowing for extraction of artifacts for scientific study whilst maintaining archaeological and anthropological context. The illicit antiquities trade involves non-scientific extraction that ignores the archaeological and anthropological context from the artifacts. Legal trade The legal trade in antiquities abide by the laws of the countries in which the artifacts originate. These laws establish how the antiquities may be extracted from the ground and the legal process in which artifacts may leave the country. In many countries excavations and exports were prohibited without official licenses already in the 19th century, as for example in the Ottoman Empire. According to the laws of the countries of origin, there can't be a legal trade with archaeological artifact without o ...
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Hubei
Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The provincial capital, Wuhan, serves as a major transportation hub and the political, cultural, and economic hub of central China. Hubei's name is officially abbreviated to "" (), an ancient name associated with the eastern part of the province since the State of E of the Western Zhou dynasty of –771 BCE; a popular name for Hubei is "" () (suggested by that of the powerful State of Chu, which existed in the area during the Eastern Zhou dynasty of 770 – 256 BCE). Hubei borders the provinces of Henan to the north, Anhui to the east, Jiangxi to the southeast, Hunan to the south, Chongqing to the west, and Shaanxi to the northwest. The high-profile Three Gorges Dam is located at Yichang, in the west of the province. Hubei is the 7th-largest p ...
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Hunan
Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to the east, Guangdong and Guangxi to the south, Guizhou to the west and Chongqing to the northwest. Its capital and largest city is Changsha, which also abuts the Xiang River. Hengyang, Zhuzhou, and Yueyang are among its most populous urban cities. With a population of just over 66 million residing in an area of approximately , it is China's 7th most populous province, the fourth most populous among landlocked provinces, the second most populous in South Central China after Guangdong and the most populous province in Central China. It is the largest province in South-Central China and the fourth largest among landlocked provinces and the 10th most extensive province by area. Hunan's nominal GDP was US$ 724 billion (CNY 4.6 trillion) a ...
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Shanghai Museum
The Shanghai Museum is a museum of ancient Chinese art, situated on the People's Square in the Huangpu District, Shanghai, Huangpu District of Shanghai, China. Rebuilt at its current location in 1996, it is considered one of China's first world-class modern museums and famous for its large collection of rare cultural pieces. History The museum was founded in 1952 and was first open to the public in the former Shanghai Racecourse club house, now at 325 West Nanjing Road. The founding collections came principally from three sources: a batch of artifacts gathered by the Communist 3rd Field Army during the civil war from accidental finds and confiscations of private property and brought to Shanghai upon the Communists' conquest of the city; artifacts confiscated by the customs service; items sold by private collectors due to political pressure during political purges and purchased by the government. The former Shanghai Municipal Museum was also merged into the new Shanghai Museum. I ...
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Guodian Chu Slips
The Guodian Chu Slips () were unearthed in 1993 in Tomb no. 1 of the Guodian tombs in Jingmen, Hubei Province and dated to the latter half of the Warring States period. The tomb is located in the Jishan District's tomb complex, near the Jingmen City in the village of Guodian, and only nine kilometers north of Ying, which was the ancient Chu capital from about 676 BC until 278 BC, before the State of Chu was overrun by Qin. The tomb and its contents were studied to determine the identity of the occupant; an elderly noble scholar, and teacher to a royal prince. The prince had been identified as Crown Prince Heng, who later became King Qingxiang of Chu. Since King Qingxiang was the Chu king when Qin sacked their old capital Ying in 278 BC, the Chu slips are dated to around 300 BC. Content There are in total about 804 bamboo slips in this cache, including 702 strips and 27 broken strips. The bamboo slip texts consist of three major categories, which include the earliest manuscripts of ...
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Shuanggudui
Shuanggudui () is an archeological site located near Fuyang in People's Republic of China, China's Anhui province. Shuanggudui grave no. 1, which belongs to Xiahou Zao (), the second marquis of Ruyin (), was sealed in 165 BCE in the early Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE). Excavated in 1977, it was found to contain a large number of texts written on bamboo strips, including fragments of the ''Classic of Poetry'' and the ''Chuci, Songs of the South'', a text on breathing exercises, a "year table" () recounting historical events, a manual on dogs, a version of the ''I Ching'' (''Yijing'') that differs from the received one, and artifact (archeology), artifacts including the oldest known cosmic board, a divinatory instrument. Like Mawangdui and Guodian (archaeological site), Guodian, two other tombs from the area of the old Chu (state), state of Chu, the Shuanggudui find has shed great light on the culture and practices of the early Han dynasty. Excavation and identification Sh ...
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Yinqueshan Han Slips
The Yinqueshan Han Slips () are ancient Chinese writing tablets from the Western Han dynasty, made of bamboo strips and discovered in 1972. The tablets contain many writings that were not previously known or shed new light on the ancient versions of classic texts. The Yinqueshan Han Tombs were accidentally unearthed by construction workers on April 10, 1972. Archaeologists arrived a few days later to excavate the site. The bamboo slips were discovered in Tombs no. 1 and 2 at the foot of Yinqueshan (), located southeast of the city of Linyi in the province of Shandong. Discovered in Tomb no. 1 were 4942 bamboo strips covered in closely written words and included portions of known texts, as well as a number of previously unknown military and divination texts, some of which were shown to resemble chapters in '' Guanzi'' and '' Mozi''. The occupant had been identified as a military officer bearing the surname Sima. Tomb no. 2, unearthed the same year, contained 32 strips of bamboo ...
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Zhangjiashan Han Bamboo Texts
The Zhangjiashan Han bamboo texts are ancient Han Dynasty Chinese written works dated 196–186 BC. They were discovered in 1983 by archaeologists excavating tomb no. 247 at Mount Zhangjia () of Jiangling County, Hubei Province (near modern Jingzhou). The tomb was built for an early Western Han era official who had died in 186 BC. The texts were written on traditional bamboo slips connected by cords into rolled scrolls. The written works included legal case precedents, literature on medicine including ''Book on Vessels'', mathematics, military strategy, and a calendar with dates ranging from 202 BC to 186 BC. The mathematical work found within the tomb, the ''Book on Numbers and Computation'', rapidly advanced the state of the field of ancient Chinese mathematics studies, clarifying the obscure passages of ''the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art''. Although its date roughly corresponds with the tomb occupant's death, one of the legal cases discussed in the work on law was ...
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Tsinghua Bamboo Slips
The Tsinghua Bamboo Strips () are a collection of Chinese texts dating to the Warring States period and written in ink on strips of bamboo, that were acquired in 2008 by Tsinghua University, China. The texts were obtained by illegal excavation, probably of a tomb in the area of Hubei or Hunan province, and were then acquired and donated to the university by an alumnus. The very large size of the collection and the significance of the texts for scholarship make it one of the most important discoveries of early Chinese texts to date. On 7 January 2014 the journal ''Nature'' announced that a portion of the Tsinghua Bamboo Strips represent "the world's oldest example" of a decimal multiplication table. Discovery, conservation and publication The Tsinghua Bamboo Strips (TBS) were donated to Tsinghua University in July 2008 by an alumnus of the university. The precise location(s) and date(s) of the illicit excavation that yielded the strips remain(s) unknown. An article in the '' Guangm ...
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