bamboo carving painting

Do you remember that at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, a performance, in which 3000 disciples of the Confucius loudly read his work holding up bamboo clips? It greatly impressed you, right? It reflects the ancient Chinese history.

The remote Shang (c.16th-11th centuries BC) and Zhou Dynasty (c.11th century BC-256 BC) saw widespread use of the written word in the form of inscriptions on tortoise shells or animal bones. They also used more or less standard forms of inscription on their bronze-ware artifacts. However from the Shang and Zhou right through to the Wei (220-265) and Jin (265-420), bamboo and wood were to remain the main writing materials. This prolonged period of some 2,000 years has come to be known in Chinese history as the Age of the Bamboo Slip.

Sadly bamboo and wood fall easy prey to decay and their use in antiquity was not recognized until the early years of the 20th century. By the 1930s bamboo slips were being brought to light in significant numbers. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, outstanding progress has been made in paleography (the study of ancient writing).