Shanghai Museum Collection of Chu Bamboo Slips from the Warring States Period (5)

Author: Ma Chengyuan, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-12-01
Features: The internationally renowned Guo Guo Chu Zhu Shu (Chu Bamboo Slips from the Ancient State of Chu) in the Shanghai Museum is one of the largest and most richly documented cultural relics and historical materials discovered among the Warring States bamboo slips in nearly a century. Discovered in the Hong Kong cultural relics market several years ago, it was rescued and returned to the Shanghai Museum. Through high-precision testing by the Shanghai Institute of Atomic Energy, the Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the bamboo slips were dated to the late Warring States period and are widely recognized by academia as a national treasure, representing a groundbreaking archaeological discovery. This collection comprises over eighty types of bamboo slips, including twenty or more original titles from the Warring States period before the burning of books and burying of scholars by Qin Shi Huang, covering topics such as history, philosophy, religion, literature, music, linguistics, and military affairs. They are extremely valuable lost texts with exceptionally high documentary value and are indispensable resources for research in various cultural fields. The published bamboo slips include over 1,200 complete and fragmented pieces, totaling over 35,500 characters, showcasing the calligraphic styles of numerous Warring States scribes. The scripts are elegant, refined, and aesthetically pleasing, with appropriately spaced and aligned lines, holding significant importance in the history of Chinese calligraphy. This edition consists of eight bamboo slips, comprising two texts: "The Brightness of Ghosts and Gods" and "Master Rong Achieves Success." The concluding sentence of the former and the opening sentence of the latter both appear on the fifth slip, with the sections separated by ink divisions.