Overview
Key data
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Excavated | 2000, Kongjiapo tomb 8, Suizhou, Hubei |
| Period | Emperor Jing of Han |
| Contents | A day book and a calendrical table, and others |
| Day book structure | What is fitting fixed by day or by month |
| Publication | The Suizhou Kongjiapo Han Tomb Slips |
Excavation and form
Kongjiapo tomb 8 yielded over seven hundred slips, among them a day book and a calendrical table.
The day book fixes what is fitting by day or month, complementing the day books of Shuihudi and Fangmatan.
“Day books” (rishu) are a whole class of excavated texts, not one book. They give, day by day, what may and may not be done — travel, marriage, breaking ground, seeing officials, bathing, cutting cloth — each with its own judgement of auspicious or inauspicious. They belong to the same line as the later tongshu and huangli almanacs.
The table and the day book together
A table and a day book in one tomb shows the two as two aspects of one thing:
the table for knowing the day, the day book for choosing or avoiding by it.
Value
Day books of this kind have come from many Qin and Han tombs; the Kongjiapo copy belongs to the early Western Han,
taking up from the Qin copies of Shuihudi and Fangmatan and leading on to the later Western Han ones, so that the genre’s changes can be seen continuously.
Compiled and arranged by Chujia Kuang.