Bamboo Annals

The bamboo or bamboo annals Chronicle ( Zhushu Jinian, Chinese竹 书 纪年) are a Chinese historical work in the form of a chronicle, which was found during the Western Jin Dynasty of grave robbers in an ancient tomb ( in today's Henan Province ).

The bamboo annals of the earliest legendary times ( the era of Urkaisers Huang Di ) to 299 BC The original version of the Annals was during the funeral of King Anli Wei (Chinese安 厘 王; † 299 BC), according to other sources, the King Xiang (Chinese襄王) or the King Ai (Chinese哀王) resigned and was discovered in the year 281. For this reason, the chronicle survived the Great Books combustion under Emperor Shi of Qin Dynasty. The Bamboo Annals are next to the Shiji, the most important work of history of Ancient China.

The Bamboo Annals were already discussed during the Han dynasty (from 206 BC to 220 AD). In the year 279, during the Western Jin Dynasty, a grave robber was arrested, and during the verdict many bamboo books from the robbed grave could be recovered. The government gave the matter great attention and sent many officers to translate the bamboo books because the seal script (Chinese篆) of the Kingdom of Wei was different from the relatively common seal script of the Qin Dynasty. During translation, the War of the Eight Kings (Chinese八 王 之 乱) was held, which the progress of the translation and classification heavily handicapped. Finally, the re-ordered books have been referred to by officials as "Bamboo Annals ".

The Bamboo Annals offset historians as a great shock because their records which were not only different in the Shiji, but also had a very mutual thematic orientation. In it they report unveiled by military coups and military conflicts of the Xia Dynasty to the era Zhan Guo of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, and thus represent the original contents of the Four Books (famous Confucian classics ) before the Confucius Korrigierungen and revision dar.

While the Shiji reported the events in biographical form, the bamboo annals of the chronological method of presenting the content, documents and references operate.

The parent in Jin Dynasty Bamboo Annals fell during the Song Dynasty apart again. After the founding of the Republic of China combined many historians on the basis of quotations from other literary works of previous generations, and constructed a " healed " version of the Bamboo Annals. This is called " Old Bamboo Annals " (Chinese古 本 竹 书 纪年). In addition, there was under the Ming dynasty yet another version, but their chronology is wrong with the citations of previous generations match. That's why this version is considered to be fictitious and as " Today's Bamboo Annals " (Chinese今 本 竹 书 纪年) refers.