{
  "author": "ChronologiaOS editorial guides",
  "date": "2026-10-09",
  "department": "Mathematics & Measurement",
  "department_id": "NUMBERS",
  "epistemic_label": "Source guide",
  "epistemic_status": "SOURCE_GUIDE",
  "period": "Western Han, tomb closed by 186 BCE",
  "place": "Zhangjiashan, Hubei, China",
  "public_sources": [
    {
      "publisher": "Cambridge University Press / Early China",
      "title": "How do excavated manuscripts and transmitted canons and commentaries shed light on each other? An outlook from mathematics",
      "type": "Peer-reviewed article",
      "url": "https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/early-china/article/abs/how-do-excavated-manuscripts-and-transmitted-canons-and-commentaries-shed-light-on-each-other-an-outlook-from-mathematics/92705FDC3716E236B905BC91CB0D3DBE"
    },
    {
      "publisher": "Historia Mathematica / Elsevier",
      "title": "The Su\u00e0n sh\u00f9 sh\u016b, Writings on reckoning",
      "type": "Peer-reviewed article",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1016/J.HM.2005.11.006"
    },
    {
      "publisher": "Oxford University Press",
      "title": "The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art: Companion and Commentary",
      "type": "Critical edition and translation",
      "url": "https://academic.oup.com/book/52966"
    },
    {
      "publisher": "Chinese Text Project",
      "title": "The Nine Chapters",
      "type": "Digital text edition",
      "url": "https://ctext.org/nine-chapters"
    }
  ],
  "publication_state": "PUBLIC",
  "read_time": "4 min read",
  "sections": [
    {
      "body": "A 2022 article in Early China examines how the excavated Zhangjiashan manuscript Suan shu shu, 'Writings on Reckoning', and the transmitted canons and commentaries shed light on each other. The research record dates the excavated witness by its archaeological context, with the tomb closure giving a terminus of 186 BCE.",
      "heading": "Start with the tomb",
      "source": 0
    },
    {
      "body": "A study in Historia Mathematica describes the manuscript's problems and methods and their implications for the history of mathematics. The excavated text is an important control: it shows that the transmitted Nine Chapters is not the only early Chinese mathematical witness.",
      "heading": "What the strips contain",
      "source": 1
    },
    {
      "body": "The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art survives through later editions with Liu Hui's commentary; the Oxford translation presents its 246 problems across practical domains. The record warns not to use the date of a surviving edition as the date of the original composition.",
      "heading": "The transmitted classic",
      "source": 2
    },
    {
      "body": "The Chinese Text Project's digital edition exposes the later textual witnesses. A buried manuscript gives a hard date for a text's existence; a transmitted classic gives a long chain of copies. Which would you trust for the wording, and which for the age?",
      "heading": "A question to carry forward",
      "source": 3
    }
  ],
  "short_title": "Which is older, the buried text or the famous one?",
  "slug": "writings-on-reckoning-an-excavated-text-beside-a-classic",
  "summary": "Compare the Suan shu shu, a mathematical manuscript on bamboo strips from a Han tomb, with the transmitted Nine Chapters, and learn how excavated witnesses test a textual tradition.",
  "tags": [
    "Suan shu shu",
    "Nine Chapters",
    "Chinese mathematics",
    "Bamboo manuscripts"
  ],
  "title": "Writings on Reckoning: an excavated text beside a transmitted classic."
}