Ancient bamboo slips reveal tomb owner's identity
http://www.china.org.cn/english/culture/234802.htm

On December 6 over 200 bamboo slips inscribed with ancient Chinese characters were discovered packed in a silk bag tucked into the Xiejiaqiao 謝家橋 No.1 tomb in Hubei Province. The tomb is over 2,200 years old.

The ancient documents were found nine days after archaeologists uncovered a 2.46-meter-long coffin wrapped in four tiers of embroidered silks. Amazingly, the shroud has remained intact underground after thousands of years.

"Tombs from the Han Dynasty have been found in many places across the country, but it is rare to find such a well-preserved one. This will provide valuable historical data for studies in archaeology, history, zoology, botany and historical textile science," said Wang Mingqin, head of Jingzhou Museum, at a press conference on Thursday, as reported by the Xinhua News Agency.

The bamboo slips revealed the identity of the tomb owner. She was an aristocratic woman named "Hui" who lived during the Han Dynasty (206 BC - AD 220). According to the documents, the woman was the mother of four officials of noble rank. She was buried on November 28, 183BC. Archaeologists found an intact skeleton inside the coffin. The coffin itself was decorated with woodcarvings that still remained discernible after thousands years of humidity and erosion.

About 200 cultural relics were also unearthed in the four coffin chambers. Items included bronze ware, lacquer work, wood and pottery, according to a statement by the Xinhua News Agency on December 6. Archaeologists opened the coffin on November 29. It was filled with black liquid and spotted with white maggot shells. Archeological cleaning procedures are expected to last for more than two months. Investigations into the bamboo slips and the cause of death are continuing.

(China.org.cn by Wu Jin, December 7, 2007)

Fantastic! Do you know of any photos? I sopening the tomb likely to lead to deterioration of the silk?

Sorry. All I know is what this article says.
I googled "Xiejiaqiao" but didn't come up with much.
I would love to know what's written on the bamboo.

Indeed. I'll keep an eye on this as well.

Eric (En Rui)

Me too! There seem to be two main texts written on the bamboo slips: a tomb inventory (called yi ce 遣策; each slip contains about 4 or 5 characters) and a religious text called "Gaodi shu" 告地书 ["Announcement to the Earth"?], some kind of letter of introduction of the deceased to the people in charge of the underworld. The name of the tomb's occupant was found in the "Gaodi shu." Many characters remain undecipherable because they are written in seal script (or a mix of seal and clerical characteristic of the very early Han) and have no modern equivalents. I'm not sure who gave these texts their titles, but I assume Chinese specialists have been working on establishing critical editions.

Another remarkable find was a jar containing a liquid that archeologists think should be some kind of fermented cereal brew.

Sources:

http://bbs.zdic.net/viewthread.php?tid=115806
http://jz.dahe.cn/news/guonei/200712/136636.html

The second one has a picture of the piece of carved wood that covered the coffin.

Thanks madalibi,

I added the Chinese characters 謝家橋 / 谢家桥 to my initial post, as I didn't have them before.

here's a couple more pictures (I think):
http://www.hubei.gov.cn/xwzx/yg05c/200711/t39531.htm

Actually, if you do a Google Image search for "谢家桥" there are many results.