After nearly eight decades abroad, volumes II and III of the Chu Silk Manuscripts have finally returned to China this May.
In this interview, Donald Harper, Centennial Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Chicago, assesses the historic moment of their repatriation from the Smithsonians National Museum of Asian Art.Unearthed from a burial place in Zidanku, Changsha, the manuscripts were unlawfully eliminated from China in the 1940s and passed through organizations throughout the United States for nearly 80 years.
Harper recounts the emotional significance of their return and applauds the decades of research led by Professor Li Ling that assisted make it possible.In this segment, Donald Harper reads from the freshly released English edition of The Chu Silk Manuscripts from Zidanku, Changsha (Hunan Province), co-translated with Lothar von Falkenhausen of the University of California, Los Angeles.
Harper hopes the publication will spark global comparative research study and much deeper gratitude of Chinese history.
Now, individuals can look at the English edition and have a specific representation of what these Zidanku Silk Manuscripts are and what their position remains in world civilization, he states.