The Chu Silk Manuscripts from Zidanku, Changsha - Volume One: Discovery and Transmission

The Silk Manuscripts from Zidanku, Changsha (Hunan), are the only pre-Imperial Chinese manuscripts on silk found to-date, dating to the Late Warring States period. This first volume presents the archaeological context and history of transmission of the physical manuscripts, recording how they were taken from their original place of interment in the 1940s and taken to the United States in 1946. It is the definitive account that will set the record straight and establish a new basis for future research on these uniquely important artifacts.

Format: Hardback
Length: 252 pages
Publication date: 20 December 2021
Publisher: The Chinese University Press

The Silk Manuscripts from Zidanku, Changsha (Hunan), are the sole pre-Imperial Chinese manuscripts on silk discovered to date. Dating to the turn from the 4th to the 3rd centuries BC (Late Warring States period), they contain several short texts concerning basic cosmological concepts, arranged in a diagrammatic arrangement and surrounded by pictorial illustrations. As such, they constitute a unique source of information complementing and going beyond what is known from transmitted texts.

This is the first in a two-volume monograph on the Zidanku manuscripts, reflecting almost four decades of research by Professor Li Ling of Peking University. While the philological study and translation of the manuscript texts are the subject of Volume Two, this first volume presents the archaeological context and history of transmission of the physical manuscripts. It records how they were taken from their original place of interment in the 1940s and taken to the United States in 1946; documents the early stages in the research on the finds from the Zidanku tomb and its re-excavation in the 1970s; and accounts for where the manuscripts were kept before becoming the property, respectively, of the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, New York (Manuscript 1), and the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution (Manuscripts 2 and 3). Superseding previous efforts, this is the definitive account that will set the record straight and establish a new basis for future research on these uniquely important artifacts.

Weight: 666g
Dimension: 279 x 216 x 15 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9789882370975