Zoumalou bamboo slips

Zoumalou bamboo slips (simplified Chinese: 走马楼简牍; traditional Chinese: 走馬樓簡牘; pinyin: Zoumalou Jiandu) are a huge amount of cultural relics what were unearthed at Zoumalou, the urban central area of Changsha, Hunan, China in 1996. The event is one of the best important archaeological finds in the 1990s of China, it is also the other best important excavation in Changsha]] after Mawangdui. All the historical artifacts from Zoumalou are displayed at the Changsha Bamboo Slips Museum.^[1]

On October 1996, on the southeastern corner at the crossroad of Huangxing and Wuyi Road, there is a place named Zoumalou (走马搂). At the Heiwado (平和堂) construction site there, more than 140,000 pieces of bamboo and wooden slips^[1] (used for writing on in ancient times) were unearthed there. The historical relics unearthed are bamboo slips (竹简), wooden slips (木简), wooden tablets (木牍), hand slip scripts (签牌) and seal slips (封检); they are documents which were mainly used to record administration and judicatory conditions in Wu Kingdom of three kingdoms period (220–280 AD). And it was beause of that the wooden and bamboo slips from Wu Kingdom, the cultural relics were also named Zoumalou Wu bamboo slips (走马楼吴简). The banboo and wooden silps discovered in the place at this time are more than all of that the previous done in China; it was also the best important discovery on Chinese historical archives in the 20th century^[2] except Oracle bone script, Dunhuang manuscripts and Discovery series of banboo and wooden silps in the Northwest.^[3] Beause of that, Changsha Bamboo Slips Museum was established in 2002. From the discovery in 1996 to cleaning up in 2015, the archaeologists spent 19 years to complete arrangement of the cultural relics.^[4][5]

From 1996 to 2015, there were other three times of new similar discoveries near or at Zoumalou. In 2003, more than twenty thousand of banboo slips^[1] was discavered at Zoumalou, these slips were belonged to West Han period （202 BC – 8 AD）. In 2004, there discovered 206 pieces of banboo slips with characters at Dongpailou (东牌楼), that were belonged to East Han period （25–220 AD）.^[6] In an ancient well placed at the southeast in the Interchange of Wuyi road and Zoumalou lane, where it is the Metro Line 2 Wuyi Square station, there discovered ten thousands of banboo slips in the construction site on June 22, 2010. It was recognized that the banboo slips are belonged to the East Han period.^[7]

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