Research on the Restoration of Liang Zhong of the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips
The Liang Zhong 两中 manuscript from the Tsinghua University collection is severely damaged,with only 142 surviving fragments.Through collation,these fragments can be reassembled into 87 bamboo slips.This manuscript was transcribed onto bamboo slips taken from six distinct bamboo culms,and there are lines scratched on the backs of the slips.By analyzing the content of the text and the scratched lines on the backs of the slips,a preliminary order of the slips can be established.Further research,based on the damaged positions of the bamboo slips and the symmetrical relationship of the ink imprints on the reverse side,suggests that this text was originally a single scroll,folded three times for storage.This inference can be used to verify the arrangement of the bamboo slips and to determine that the original scroll should have had 88 slips,with the 39th slip missing.Statistical analysis shows that a complete bamboo slip can hold an average of 33±8 characters(counting duplicate,combined and broken characters as one).With 2971 characters preserved,it is estimated that the original text contained about 3014 characters.Given its relatively complete structure,this is another long bamboo text among the Tsinghua University manuscripts collection.The restoration of the Liang Zhong provides a significant case study for the micro-archaeology of bamboo manuscripts.
Liang ZhongTsinghua manuscriptsrestoration of bamboo booksmanuscript codicologymicro-archaeology
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