This article on the NYRB website by Ian Johnson, one of the first I’ve seen, describes the rescue and piecing together of these ancient bamboo manuscripts (like the Vindalia bark manuscripts from the UK), called the Tsinghua slips, the understanding Chinese culture as well as early literacy and recording of texts in ancient China. If… Continue reading A Revolutionary Discovery in China (NYRB)
Category: Writing
Learning to write on Wax Tablets, 3rd C CE
Judith Weingarten at her blog writes about a student learning to write at Palmyra with some wax tablets surviving from the 3rd C CE, now in the Netherlands: All seven Tabulae ceratae Assendelftianae were written by a single schoolboy who lived in the city in the early third century CE (as can be determined from… Continue reading Learning to write on Wax Tablets, 3rd C CE