Overview
Key data
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Excavated | Han-period sites around Qingshuigou, Dunhuang, Gansu |
| Date | First year of Dijie, Emperor Xuan (69 BCE) |
| Form | Day-table, days in sexagenary order |
| Notations | Jianchu and others |
| Significance | A day-table from after the Taichu reform |
Its place in time
The Taichu reform came in 104 BCE; this table is for 69 BCE, some thirty-five years after it.
Set against the Yinqueshan table for 134 BCE, from before the reform, it gives a pair of samples straddling the change.
Its place of discovery
Such tables come mostly from tombs in the central plains and the Yangzi-Huai region; finds from the Hexi frontier are rarer.
A Dunhuang find shows that the calendar issued by the court was in use on the frontier too — evidence of unified administration.
“Calendrical tables” (lipu) are another large class of excavated slips: the practical day-tables of their time. The days are set down in the sexagenary cycle with notes on the jianchu cycle, the fu-la festivals and the eight nodes. They are the first-hand material evidence of how the calendar was actually used. The calendars preserved in transmitted texts are mostly the court’s methods and numbers; the tables show what those looked like in daily practice.
Compiled and arranged by Chujia Kuang.