Liye Qin Slips, Archaeological artifacts in Liye, China
The Liye Qin Slips are over 37,000 bamboo and wooden tablets inscribed with more than 200,000 Chinese characters. They document government records and legal matters from ancient times in remarkable detail.
These tablets were discovered in 2002 during construction of a hydroelectric facility. They come from the Qin Dynasty and reveal how an ancient prefecture was administered and organized.
The records show how people lived then: their farm work, local celebrations, and how communities were run. They offer a direct window into everyday life under China's first unified rule.
At the Qin Dynasty Bamboo Slips Museum in Longshan County, Hunan Province, the tablets are displayed for viewing. The exhibition is organized clearly by type of record, making it easy to understand the different categories of documents.
One of the most striking discoveries among these fragments is the world's oldest known multiplication table. It shows that people then already mastered complex mathematical thinking.
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