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Zhangjiashan
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book On Numbers And Computation
The ''Book on Numbers and Computation'' (), or the ''Writings on Reckoning'', is one of the earliest known Chinese mathematical treatises. It was written during the early Western Han dynasty, sometime between 202 BC and 186 BC.Liu et al. (2003), 9. It was preserved among the Zhangjiashan Han bamboo texts and contains similar mathematical problems and principles found in the later Eastern Han period text of ''The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art''. Discovery The text was found in tomb M247 of the burial grounds near Zhangjiashan, Jiangling County, in Hubei province, excavated in December–January 1983–1984. This tomb belonged to an anonymous civil servant in early West Han dynasty. In the tomb were 1200 bamboo strips written in ink. Originally the strips were bound together with string, but the string had rotted away and it took Chinese scholars 17 years to piece together the strips. As well as the mathematical work the strips covered government statutes, law repor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book On Vessels
The ''Maishu'' (), translated into English as the ''Book on Vessels'', is an early Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ... medical text that discusses the vessels of the body. It was unearthed as part of the Zhangjiashan cache of texts in the 1980s.Anthony J. Barbieri-Low and Robin D.S. Yates, ''Law, State, and Society in Early Imperial China: A Study with Critical Edition and Translation of the Legal Texts from Zhangjiashan Tomb no. 247'', Leiden: Brill, pp. 14, 48 It was found with another medical text, ''Book on Therapeutic Pulling'' ('' Yinshu''), as well as two legal texts, a maths book and a dialogue illustrating military and political issues. The ''Book of Vessels'' was first transcribed in 1989. The contents include a discussion of the symptoms of 67 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Mathematics
Mathematics in China emerged independently by the 11th century BCE. The Chinese independently developed a real number system that includes significantly large and negative numbers, more than one numeral system ( base 2 and base 10), algebra, geometry, number theory and trigonometry. Since the Han Dynasty, as diophantine approximation being a prominent numerical method, the Chinese made substantial progress on polynomial evaluation. Algorithms like regula falsi and expressions like continued fractions are widely used and have been well-documented ever-since. They deliberately find the principal ''n''th root of positive numbers and the roots of equations. The major texts from the period, ''The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art'' and the ''Book on Numbers and Computation'' gave detailed processes for solving various mathematical problems in daily life. All procedures were computed using a counting board in both texts, and they included inverse elements as well as Euclidean divi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Han Dynasty
The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warring interregnum known as the ChuHan contention (206–202 BC), and it was succeeded by the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 AD). The dynasty was briefly interrupted by the Xin dynasty (9–23 AD) established by usurping regent Wang Mang, and is thus separated into two periods—the Western Han (202 BC – 9 AD) and the Eastern Han (25–220 AD). Spanning over four centuries, the Han dynasty is considered a golden age in Chinese history, and it has influenced the identity of the Chinese civilization ever since. Modern China's majority ethnic group refers to themselves as the "Han people", the Sinitic language is known as "Han language", and the written Chinese is referred to as "Han characters". The emperor was at the pinnacle of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shuihudi Qin Bamboo Texts
The Shuihudi Qin bamboo texts () are early Chinese texts written on bamboo slips, and are also sometimes called the Yúnmèng Qin bamboo texts. They were excavated in December 1975 from Tomb #11 at Shuìhǔdì () in Yunmeng County, Hubei, China. The tomb belonged to a Qin administrator of c. 217 BCE. Written in the Qin dynasty, the texts record Qin laws and public documents. Their contents have been published in the book 《睡虎地秦墓竹簡》 (''Shuìhǔdì Qínmù Zhújiǎn''). This cache of bamboo slips is of great importance for research into the government, economics, culture, law, military affairs, etc. of the late Warring States to the Qin period. While the Shuihudi cache is deemed to be among the most valuable epigraphic sources on the Qin history, the discoveries of the Qin Slips of Liye in 2002 and 2005 are regarded as being of equal, if not bigger, importance.Yuri Pines, Gideon Shelach, Lothar von Falkenhausen, Robin D.S. Yates (eds.). Birth of an Empire:The Stat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Nine Chapters On The Mathematical Art
''The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art'' () is a Chinese mathematics book, composed by several generations of scholars from the 10th–2nd century BCE, its latest stage being from the 2nd century CE. This book is one of the earliest surviving mathematical texts from China, the first being '' Suan shu shu'' (202 BCE – 186 BCE) and ''Zhoubi Suanjing'' (compiled throughout the Han until the late 2nd century CE). It lays out an approach to mathematics that centres on finding the most general methods of solving problems, which may be contrasted with the approach common to ancient Greek mathematicians, who tended to deduce propositions from an initial set of axioms. Entries in the book usually take the form of a statement of a problem, followed by the statement of the solution and an explanation of the procedure that led to the solution. These were commented on by Liu Hui in the 3rd century. History Original book The full title of ''The Nine Chapters on the Mathemat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mawangdui Silk Texts
The Mawangdui Silk Texts () are Chinese philosophical and medical works written on silk which were discovered at the Mawangdui site in Changsha, Hunan, in 1973. They include some of the earliest attested manuscripts of existing texts (such as the ''I Ching''), two copies of the ''Tao Te Ching'', a copy of ''Zhan Guo Ce'', works by Gan De and Shi Shen and previously unknown medical texts, such as '' Wushi'er Bingfang'' (''Prescriptions for Fifty-Two Ailments''). Scholars arranged them into 28 types of silk books. Their approximately 120,000 words cover military strategy, mathematics, cartography and the six classical arts: ritual, music, archery, horsemanship, writing and arithmetic. Overview The texts were buried in tomb number three at Mawangdui (which was sealed in 168 BC), and were hidden until their late-20th-century discovery. Some were previously known only by title, and others are previously-unknown commentaries on the ''I Ching'' attributed to Confucius. In general, they fol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Traditional Chinese Law
Traditional Chinese law refers to the laws, regulations, and rules used in China up to 1911, when the last imperial dynasty fell. It has undergone continuous development since at least the 11th century BCE. This legal tradition is distinct from the common law and civil law traditions of the West – as well as Islamic law and classical Hindu law – and to a great extent, is contrary to the concepts of contemporary Chinese law. It incorporates elements of both Legalist and Confucian traditions of social order and governance. One feature of the traditional Chinese criminal procedure is that it was an inquisitorial system where the judge, usually the district magistrate, conducts the public investigation of a crime. This is comparable to the system used in civil law jurisdictions, but contrary to common law which uses an adversarial system where the judge decides between attorneys representing the prosecution and defense. "The Chinese traditionally despised the role of advocate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
