Flowing sand falls simply

Author: Wang Guowei Wang Guowei
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1999-03-01
Features: The Shallow Sand Fragments are categorized according to the content and nature of the bamboo slips and tablets, divided into three major classes: The first major class is elementary academic and technical books, involving classics such as Cangjie, Jiju, Limu, Lishu, Arithmetic, Yin-Yang, Divination, The Art of Horse Breeding, and Veterinary Recipes. The second major class is the scattered remnants of garrisons, which are further divided into six subcategories based on content: official documents, beacon towers, garrison duties, provisions, artifacts, and miscellaneous matters. The third class is the surviving writings of bamboo slips and tablets, collecting various types of letters. These three categories were completed by Luo Zhenyu, while the second class was compiled by Wang Guowei. Additionally, Wang Guowei selected Supplementary Fragments to interpret the early Jin dynasty documents obtained by Aurel Stein along the lower reaches of the Niya River. He also supplemented the Appendix by transcribing and annotating the draft of Li Bai, the former Western Regions Commandant of the early Liang dynasty, which was discovered by of the Oka Expedition Team in northern Lop Nur. Furthermore, based on Stein's Serindia: Archaeological Explorations in Central and Western Asia, he drew a distribution map of Dunhuang's beacon towers and compiled a table listing the numbering of each tower, its Chinese poetic name, and the wooden slips unearthed from it. The documents recorded in this book include wooden, silk, and paper materials from the Han to the Wei-Jin periods, with most Han dynasty documents being wooden and a small number silk, while those from the Wei-Jin period include both wooden and paper materials. To facilitate readers, two additional efforts were made during this publication: first, the original three-volume octavo line-bound edition was reduced to a single, fine-bound sixteen-page edition; second, the original book was given a unified new page numbering, and a newly compiled table of contents was placed at the beginning of the volume.