Silk manuscripts, described as the “only known silk manuscripts from the Warring States period (475 B.C.-221 B.C.),” are to be returned from the U.S. to China. The scrolls were illegally removed from China in 1946 soon after being discovered in 1942 from the Zidanku site in Changsha, Hunan Province. These manuscripts are compared to the Dead Sea Scrolls in historical importance.
Global Times reported yesterday: “As the only known silk manuscripts from the Warring States period unearthed in China, the Zidanku Silk Manuscripts—over 2,000 years old—are the earliest silk texts discovered to date, representing the earliest known example of a classical Chinese book in the true sense, historian Zhou Xueying, a professor with the School of History at Nanjing University, told the Global Times on Sunday.
“The manuscripts are of foundational significance for the study of ancient Chinese script and literature, as well as for the history of Chinese scholarship and thought,” according to historian Zhou Xueying, a professor with the School of History at Nanjing University.
Li Ling, a veteran archaeology professor at Peking University, who has studied silk manuscripts for more than four decades, told Global Times that the Zidanku manuscript can be compared to the Dead Sea Scrolls, one of the oldest surviving Hebrew Bible manuscripts. The scrolls, dating back to 200-100 B.C., were discovered five years after the Zidanku manuscript, which dates back to 300 B.C. “Just as the Dead Sea Scrolls are crucial for understanding Western and Christian culture, the Zidanku manuscript offers insights into the ancient Chinese world of occultism,” according to Li.
Huo Zhengxin, a law professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times that this year alone, over 40 cultural relics have been returned to China through China-U.S. treaties, underscoring stable bilateral cooperation in this field despite broader geopolitical strains. “This sets a valuable precedent for recovering artifacts displaced through colonial or unethical means,” she told the Global Times.
Usefully, the Global Times also reports, “On social media, including the video-sharing platform YouTube, users urged other cultural institutions, including the British Museum, to take similar actions by returning looted historical items to their countries of origin out of respect for their cultural and historical significance.”
