Abandoned wells hid record books from 1,700 years ago. See ancient finds from China
Obscured by dirt and forgotten to time, a pair of ancient wells — and their hidden treasures — sat abandoned for centuries. Not anymore.
Archaeologists unearthed the abandoned wells in the ruins of the powerful ancient city of Dutou, according to a Jan. 4 news release from the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the China Archaeology Network.
With its moat-ringed city, surrounding tombs and nearby mining sites, Dutou was once the county capital, archaeologists said. The city maintained its power from the Han Dynasty, which began in 206 B.C., until the Six Dynasties period, which ended in 589 A.D., according to Britannica.
In the ruins of Dutou, archaeologists found two filled-in water wells reaching over 40 feet down, the institute said. A photo shows one of these wells.
Inside the wells were almost 10,000 bamboo slips, many with writing on them, archaeologists said. Photos show some of these wooden artifacts of various sizes and shapes.
“Slips, typically made of wood or bamboo, served as the primary medium for writing among ancient Chinese people prior to the invention and popularization of paper,” Xinhua News, a state-controlled news outlet, reported on Dec. 22.
The bamboo slips found in Dutou were over 1,700 years old and included records of local taxes, household registration, farmland and other economic or administrative information, archaeologists said. The slips functioned as part of the city’s official record books.
“Some slips are like today’s business cards,” Chen Bin, a researcher with the Hunan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said, according to the state-controlled news outlet China Daily.
“People wrote down their names, honorary titles, and native places on the wood to socialize,” Chen said, according to the outlet’s Dec 28 article. “They often wrote their own names in an artistic way. So these slips were not only for practical use, but also as a way to appreciate each other’s calligraphy.”
Archaeologists described the two ancient wells, which contained the bamboo slips, as the most important finding in Dutou. Other finds at the ancient site include residential ruins, tombs and hundreds of artifacts.
Dutou is in Hunan Province and about 680 miles southwest of Shanghai.
Google Translate and Baidu Translate were used to translate the news release from the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the China Archaeology Network.
This story was originally published January 10, 2024 at 10:25 AM with the headline "Abandoned wells hid record books from 1,700 years ago. See ancient finds from China."
