Dating to around 300 B.C.E., the Zidanku Manuscripts are the oldest known silk manuscripts found in China and the only ones from the Warring States period. They’re thought to be a divination guide that offers rare insights into ancient Chinese philosophy and religion.This story has been getting a lot of attention, with predictable emphasis on the parallels to the Dead Sea Scrolls. For example here, with some additional details.Volume II, also known as “Wuxing Ling,” contains lunar calendar illustrations and accompanying text that explains “seasonal taboos and auspicious practices,” per the Chinese news agency Xinhua. The texts in Volume III, or “Gongshou Zhan,” are arranged in a rare circular pattern and are read clockwise. They may offer guidance for attacking and defending cities.
“The Dead Sea Scrolls are foundational to understanding the religious roots of Judaism and Christianity,” Li Ling, a scholar of Chinese studies at Peking University, tells the Chinese broadcaster CCTV, perSouth China Morning Post’s Luna Sun. “The Zidanku manuscripts are no less vital to Chinese civilization. They speak to our ancient knowledge systems, our understanding of the cosmos and the details of everyday life.”.
Another famous set of Chinese manuscripts comparable in date to the Scrolls (and also compared to them, e.g. here) is the Ma-wang-tui silk manuscripts of Lao-Tzu's Tao-Te-Ching (and some other works). They were discovered in 1973 in an ancient tomb dated to 168 BCE. Robert G. Hendricks published an English translation of the Lao-Tzu texts in Lao-Tzu: Te-Tao Ching: A New Translation Based on the Recently Discovered Ma-wang tui Texts (Classics of Ancient China) (Random House, 1989 with reprints).
And for some other Warring-States-era manuscripts, Confucian texts written on bamboo, see here. They too "have been compared to the Dead Sea scrolls."
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