BAMBOO ANNALS

Chinese (Wade-Giles romanization) Chu-shu Chi-nien, Pinyin Zhushu Jinian, set of records written on bamboo slips, from the state of Chin, one of the many small states into which China was divided during the late, or Eastern, Chou dynasty (770221 BC). The Chin state was destroyed about the middle of the 5th century BC, and the state records were hidden in a tomb sometime later. Uncovered in 279 AD, when the use of bamboo slips had already gone out of style, the records acquired the name under which they have since been known. The Bamboo Annals contain one of the few written records of the earliest period in Chinese history, but the originals have been lost, and the later copies that survive have been proved to contain much spurious information.