Li Xueqin (second from left) and his team admire the significance of the rare bamboo strips. [Photo courtesy of Tsinghua University]

Have you ever wondered what books people read 2,000 years ago? A recent cultural relic donation in China has provided an answer to this question in a convincing way.

On October 22, China's prestigious Tsinghua University held a press conference in Beijing, announcing that the university had acquired a batch of bamboo strips that had been proved to date back to the Warring States Period (475-221 B.C.)

Tsinghua said that the batch of bamboo strips were donated in July by an alumnus named Zhao Weiguo, who got these treasures from an overseas auction. The university did not say when these bamboo strips were unearthed or who owned them previously.

The donation got academic circles in China spinning, as archaeologists and historians have found that the ancient items include a number of important ancient Chinese classics and historical documents, of which many have never been seen before.

To protect these treasures, Tsinghua set up a dedicated Center of Unearthed Documents Study and Preservation, inviting experts to do the primary protection and research work.

Li Xueqin, Director of the Center, Professor in the Department of History at Tsinghua and also a prestigious historian in China, said at the October press conference that the experts' studies show that these bamboo strips belong to the middle or late period of the Warring States Period, around 2,300 to 2,400 years ago, and were very likely unearthed in today's Hubei Province in central China.

High academic value

Bamboo strips were one of the main materials used by Chinese to write on before the invention of paper. In the past, the thin bamboo strips were connected by thread and became the pages of books read at the time.