In December 2007, the Yuelu Academy of Hunan University acquired a collection of bamboo slips that are lost cultural relics found in Hong Kong. After comparative material testing and expert identification, the precious bamboo slips were confirmed to be in Qin Dynasty and named Yuelu Qin Slips. The Yuelu Qin Slips were severely damaged once found at the antique market in Hong Kong. In order to protect the bamboo slips and restore them to their original form, Yuelu Academy of Hunan University established a strategic alliance with Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House and set up a collation team headed by Professor Chen Songchang. After fifteen years of painstaking research, the bamboo slips were finally compiled into seven volumes and published as Collection of Yuelu Bamboo Slips from Qin Dynasty. Let us explore the past and present life of the Yuelu Qin Slips, and get to know a different Qin dynasty from the popular perception, as told by Professor Chen Songchang.
Chen Songchang, Chief Editor of Collection of Yuelu Bamboo Slips from Qin Dynasty
Chen Songchang is a professor at the Yuelu Academy of Hunan University, a doctoral supervisor, the director of the Research Center of Chinese Calligraphy on Silk and Bamboo at Hunan University, and the director of the Research Center of Silk and Bamboo Literatures at Hunan University, as well as a part-time professor at the Jao Tsung-I Petite Ecole of the University of Hong Kong. Over the years, his research on unearthed bamboo and silk documents, seal calligraphy and other cultural relics has given him a keen sense of smell for these relics.
In late 2006, Professor Chen went to Hong Kong to attend an academic symposium. During his stay in Hong Kong, Professor Zhang Guangyu of the Chinese University of Hong Kong took him to an antique dealer in Lascar Row, a famous antique market in Hong Kong, to observe the newly discovered bamboo slips, where Chen had his first encounter with the Yuelu Qin Slips, the authenticity, and age of which could not be determined at that time.
At the first glance, the bamboo slips were really in rags. A dozen bamboo pieces were wrapped in watery plastic film. After careful observation, they agreed that the bamboo slips should be ancient documents without a doubt.
“It's a bit like a Han dynasty slips, but I can't be sure.” Chen looked at the writing on the bamboo slips in front of him and said.
After the initial negotiation with the antique dealer, Chen learned that there were many similar bamboo slips. The antique dealer's asking price was not high compared to the market at the time, but the deal had to be put on hold due to financial problems.
Time soon came in October 2007. Chen was again invited to Hong Kong to attend an academic seminar on the history of Chinese calligraphy. By coincidence, he met with Professor Zhang once again. During a casual conversation, Zhang again mentioned the bamboo slips they had seen in Lascar Row last time. Chen asked Zhang to reconnect with the antique dealer and set up a time to "visit" the bamboo slips again.
This time, Chen was surprised and heartbroken. Unlike the dozen or so they saw a year ago, this time they saw two large pots of bamboo slips. Although the bamboo slips had been simply water treated, some of them showed traces of mildew. If not protected in time, these bamboo slips will only end up rotting.
“I am also very anxious! Now I have brought more of these, seeing them decay day by day, I also hope to quickly find someone to take over the protection, at least do not let them destroy in my hands.” The antique dealer said to Chen and his group with some anxiety.
In this regard, Chen relieved the antique dealer and said, as long as the bamboo slips are determined to be an ancient excavation of cultural relics, Yue Lu Academy will definitely fund the purchase. Now the first thing they have to do is to identify the bamboo slips.
The antique dealer trusted the prestigious Yuelu Academy so much that without even signing a contract or written agreement, he immediately sent all the bamboo slips to Yuelu Academy. In December 2007, two large pots of bamboo slips were divided into eight bundles, wrapped in humidified plastic film, and officially collected in the Yuelu Academy.
Yuelu Academy in the first time invited experts from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage Jingzhou Cultural Relics Protection Center to handle the protection and treatment. After a series of material testing, the raw materials of the bamboo slips were basically the same as two of the unearthed bamboo slips from the Han Dynasty; later, judging from the characteristics of the writing and the content recorded on the bamboo slips, experts finally confirmed they are slips of Qin Dynasty.
With the addition of a batch of bamboo slips donated by an anonymous collector in Hong Kong, a total of 2,176 numbered bamboo slips was named “Collection of Yuelu Bamboo Slips from Qin Dynasty” (referred as Yuelu Qin Slips). Since then, the collection has officially got its own name.
The identification of the Yuelu Qin Slips unveiled the prelude to the collation and research work.When the bamboo slips entered the Yuelu Academy, all the slips were stuck together and difficult to divide, so if they were forcibly uncovered, it might not even be possible to keep a complete piece of bamboo slip. Therefore, uncovering and preserving them became the most basic and primary work for studying the Yuelu Qin Slips. The Yuelu Academy invited experts from the Cultural Relics Conservation Center to clean and preserve more than 2,000 pieces. The subsequent filming of the materials and the collation and study were carried out by Chen and his team.
A total of 2,100 bamboo slips were separated, processed, and numbered, of which more than 1,300 were intact. Together with other 76 slips donated by the Hong Kong collector, a total of 2,176 pieces of bamboo slips were grouped by Chen and his team into six categories: “Zhi Ri”, “How to Be an Official for the Common People”, “Dream Interpreting”, “Arithmetic”, “Four forms of descriptions for judicial laws”, and “Collection of laws and decrees”. They also wrote an article to introduce the classification which was published in Cultural Relics journal in 2008.
This classification was determined by Chen and his team after a thorough reading of all the bamboo slips. Their work had been sent to experts in the field of slips and documents at home and abroad for validation before it was edited and processed by Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House and made available to the general public. It took 15 years for the Yuelu Academy and Chen's team to complete this work.
Collection of Yuelu Bamboo Slips from Qin Dynasty (volume seven)
From 2010 to 2022, the seven volumes of the Collection of Yuelu Bamboo Slips from Qin Dynasty have been published. Many of the historical materials in the Collection of Yuelu Bamboo Slips from Qin Dynasty either fill gaps in the field of Qin history research or become powerful corroboration of existing Qin dynasty historical documents, which not only have the value of complementing and proving history but also refresh the readers' understanding of Qin dynasty civilization and lay the foundation for in-depth research on Qin history. With the publication of this set of books, high-quality articles citing the contents of the Collection of Yuelu Bamboo Slips from Qin Dynasty have appeared one after another in important publications in the cultural relics circle, and a new wave of research on Qin dynasty history has been set off within China and overseas.
Among the six major categories of the Yuelu Qin Slips, “Four forms of descriptions for judicial laws” and “Collection of laws and decrees” occupy the majority of their contents. Chen said that the most noteworthy value of the Yuelu Qin Slips is mainly reflected in the content of the legal system of the Qin Dynasty recorded in the bamboo slips, which is also an important element that breaks certain inherent perceptions of the Qin Dynasty. The documented information completely overturned the previous claim that “there were laws but no decrees during the Qin Dynasty” and filled a gap in the field of Qin history research.
Also filling the gaps in certain areas of Qin historical research are the dream-telling book “Dream Interpreting” and the mathematics book “Arithmetic” in Yuelu Qin Slips.
The “Dream Interpreting” is the earliest known documentary source of dream books in China, providing first-hand precious information for the study and interpretation of dream-occupation customs and traditions of the Qin Dynasty, and opening up a new field for the study of Qin history.
The “Arithmetic” is presumed to have been written as early as 23 B.C. The book has preserved the earliest examples of ancient algorithms such as the Pythagorean Theorem and the Qizhong Algorithm, and it has revealed the development of mathematics books from the “Arithmetic” in Yuelu Qin Slips to Writings on Reckoning in Zhangjiashan Han Slips and then to The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art, reflecting the succession and evolutionary trajectory between the three mathematical works. This can be considered an extremely significant discovery in the history of Chinese mathematics.
All in all, with the completion of the Collection of Yuelu Bamboo Slips from Qin Dynasty and the in-depth study of these materials, more “mysteries” about Qin dynasty history will be revealed, and more new research results will emerge. It is believed that after the basic research work is completed, the new journey of in-depth research on new areas of Qin history will also slowly begin and blossom.