Bamboo Slips

Unearthed in the Western-Han tomb of Xupu town, Yizheng county in 1985, this is a set of 16 bamboo slips bearing an inscription of 270 Chinese characters with contents about inheritance and transfer of property ownership, which is the first ever-found legal will of the Western Han dynasty (202 BC-8 AD) that was called “xian ling quan shu” during that period. It indicates that there has been a set of inheritance rules combing wills and laws since as early as the Western Han dynasty, serving as a precious material for the study on the history of law and economy of China.