Chenzhou Museum launched a series of activities to celebrate the International Museum Day on May 17, inviting citizens and tourists to watch the laser-assisted replication of Jin bamboo slips and copy them. The number of unearthed bamboo slips in the Jin dynasty in Chenzhou exceeds the total unearthed nationwide in the past. 

 

 

From the Warring States period to the Three Kingdoms and Jin periods, bamboo slips unearthed in Hunan region (Han bamboo slips in Changsha, Jin bamboo slips in Chenzhou, Qin bamboo slips in Xiangxi) almost covered the entire era of bamboo slip usage, making Hunan a major province for bamboo slips. 

 

As early as 2003 to 2004, 909 bamboo slips of the Western Jin Dynasty were salvaged from 11 ancient wells in Suxianqiao, Chenzhou City from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Song and Yuan Dynasties. 

 

The bamboo slips cover administrative institutions, farmland, registered residence population, taxes and other contents 1,700 years ago. This is the largest collection of bamboo slips of the Western Jin Dynasty found in China.

 

 

According to research, the Western Jin Dynasty was a transitional period between the widespread use of paper and the gradual withdrawal of bamboo slips. The number of surviving Jin slips in the country is very imited, and Jin slips have become a “timeless masterpiece” in the development history of Chinese bamboo slips. 

 

Zheng Yanqing, the director of the Chenzhou Museum, said that this batch of official bamboo slips and documents from Guiyang County in Western Jin Dynasty presents a paradigm of official documents. The calligraphy in the bamboo slips and documents is beautiful, truly presenting the evolution process of clerical script, regular script, and running script. It has important value for the development and research of Chinese calligraphy art.

 

 

In recent years, in addition to setting up a dedicated exhibition area for Jin bamboo slips, the Chenzhou Museum has also introduced advanced technologies to present Jin bamboo slips.