Wooden strips unearthed in Hunan date back to Western Han Dynasty

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, January 17, 2004

Wooden strips unearthed in Hunan date back to Western Han Dynasty

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Wooden strips unearthed in Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan Province, in November 2003, are administrative documents of the Hanwu emperor, the most famous emperor in the Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-24), said Song Shaohua, curator of Changsha wooden strips museum.

"Most of the wooden strips unearthed, more than 10,000, are judicial documents, covering a large range of contents including judicial proceedings, legal reform, statistics, transport and postin the reign of the Hanwu emperor," said Song.

"It is considered to be another great discovery after the excavation of Western Han tombs at Mawangdui as it provides more valuable material on the history, laws, official system, administrative districts and territory of the Changsha kingdom in the early days of the Western Han Dynasty," said Song.

Discovered at Zoumalou, center of Wuyi square in Changsha city, the site was only 95 meters away from where the 140,000 wooden strips of the Wu Kingdom (220-280) in the period of the Three Kingdoms were discovered in 1996.

"It is unusual in China's archaeological history to discover such a large amount of wooden strips in succession within a region not very large," said Yuan Jiarong, director of Hunan archaeological institute.

So far, over 100 of the wooden strips have been cleared and authenticated.

"The age of these strips is determined to be in the early days of the Hanwu reign from 125 B.C. to 120 B.C.," said Song.

Source: Xinhua

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