Date: From November 11, 2023
Venue: Room 201, Museum of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica
Website: http://museum.sinica.edu.tw/en/exhibitions/93/
Description:
Among slips excavated from the frontier regions of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.–220 A.D.) those unearthed from Edsen-gol are made of raw wood materials, mostly Euphrates poplar, salt cedar, and pines, with a small number being bamboo. Based on their form and function, they were crafted into various types: zha (slips), lianghang (double-column slips), du (tablets), jie (tags), jian (sealing strips), and gu (polyhedral tablets). Considering that the number of characters that can be included on a single slip is rather limited, multiple slips would be bound together into a scroll or bound volume to make a more complete text. The majority of Han slips were thus used and stored as bound volumes. Due to the incessant accumulation of slips, however, those responsible for their storage often faced space, management, and other related issues, and were inevitably to periodically destroy them. For the frontier regions more specifically, in an effort to fully utilize the resources at their disposal, slips were often reused or adapted for other uses.

At the time of discovery, the Han wooden slips from Edsen-gol were mostly scattered single slips as the bindings had rotten away and come undone or because the slips themselves had been ruined, altered, or repurposed. But only complete volumes can further our understandings of Han politics, military affairs, law, education, economics, and quotidian life. Their excavation and the later publishing of their images, soon attracted scholars’ interests. They dedicated themselves to the restoration of these ancient texts, thereby shedding a new light on the Han official documents and related institutions.

This exhibition explores the life cycle of slips in the frontier regions of Han by examining their materials, writings, and reutilized. In addition, based on the latest research, the exhibition selects the most representative bound volumes of slips to showcase the results of restoration efforts concerning the collation of the Han slips from Edsen-gol. Even more specifically, exhibition contents revolve around the following themes: materials, forms, volume and weight of slips; the writing, binding, storage and preservation of bound volumes; restoration of the Han Dynasty Wooden Slips from Edsen-gol; the destroying and reutilization of slips and the application of digital humanities tools in the restoration of bound volumes.