Unearthed in 1975 from a Qin tomb in Shuihudi, Yunmeng county, Central China's Hubei Province, the ancient Shuihudi Bamboo Slips of the Qin Dynasty (221BC-206BC) is comprised of numerous bamboo strips - a medium ancient Chinese often used to write on before the invention of paper - upon which are written treatises on subjects such as politics, economics, law, medicine and even fortune-telling dating back to as early as China's Warring States (475BC-221BC) period.
The records are believed to be written by a Qin official named Xi, in whose coffin the slips were found. Almost half of its contents cover the laws and legal practices during the reign of Qin Shi Huang (259BC-210BC) - the founder of the Qin Dynasty and China's first emperor.
Now part of the Hubei Provincial Museum collection, the Shuihudi Bamboo Slips are considered one of China's earliest encyclopedias.
Window to the past
Additionally, the records provide insight into the society of the time through records discussing how the Qin government dealt with epidemics such as leprosy and fortune-telling details such as how they believed the time of day when someone was born would influence their fate.
Moreover, the Shuihudi Bamboo Slips even contain what is one of China's earliest records on environmental protection, Chen Zhenyu, former head of the Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and also a member of the team that unearthed the slips, said on National Treasure.
Aside from the look into ancient history that the slips give readers, they also provide researchers insight into how Chinese characters evolved over time.
Replicating history
Due to the fact that the tomb where the slips were found was flooded, the slips became bloated with water. For this reason, they must remain in a carefully controlled environment or else they will dry out and become shriveled, which causes to the writing to become completely unintelligible. For this reason it is very difficult to put the slips on display on a regular basis either at the Hubei Provincial Museum or elsewhere, Ding told the Global Times.
Even more challenging than creating the bamboo strips themselves was getting the writing correct.
Since the strips are roughly 8 millimeters wide and 20 centimeters long, writing some 50 Chinese characters on each strip required knowledge of calligraphy, a deft hand and lots of patience.
