A New Discovery of Ancient Chinese Bamboo Slips

I For the past 30 years, there has arisen a new trend of worldwide studies on Ancient Chinese culture and thought. This new trend is indeed about excavated materials. In ancient China, they had a custom such that, when people died, they were buried with the articles they had used in order to commemorate the dead. And these articles included such literary material as bamboo slips, wood slips, silk books, etc. ‘The excavated material’ here is a general name for all the literature and, in particular, ‘chujian楚簡’ is an abbreviated word for the bamboo slips excavated in the Chu楚 area of the Warring States period. When we examine the content of the material, we can see that it is very old.1) Modern studies of this material have only begun in the 20th century. Under this circumstance, the excavation (1994) and the announcement (1998) of ‘the bamboo slips from the tomb of the Chu Dynasty郭店楚墓竹簡’ (hereafter, Guodianchujian郭店楚簡) were a brilliant decoration for the late 20th Century, and the examination of the material provides a decisive opportunity to increase the understanding of the life and literature during the Chu Dynasty of the Warring States period. However, another artifact for the studies of bamboo slips has been recently discovered. It is called Zhanguochuzhushu戰國 楚竹書 (hereafter, Shangbochujian上博楚簡) and is currently being filed in the Shanghai Museum. Also, some of the slips are published by the Shanghaiguji publishing company