Page 344 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

The land route proceeded from E to the north-
ern border areas of the Chu state — first to the
Nanyang basin (southwestern Henan) and from
there down the Huai River valley into northern
Anhui. These areas, conquered by Chu since the
early seventh century BCE, remained contested
territory. Perhaps for this reason, the wagon tallies
prohibit trading in materials liable to be put to
military use.
Following the convention for official documents,
the inscription texts begin with a date. The year is
specified by reference to the defeat of the Jin army
at Xiangling, which is known from historical sources
to have occurred in 323 BCE (the sixth year of the
reign of King Huai of Chu); the month is given in
terms of the Chu calendar; the day is the twelfth in
the ever-repeating Cycle of Sixty. The administrators
involved with the issuance of the tallies are named
(some of their titles are still poorly understood),
followed by stipulations for the use of the tallies and
the descriptions of the travel routes.
While the tallies' elegantly written characters
exemplify the Chu script, a literate person from out-
side Chu would have been able to make sense of the
tally inscriptions without difficulty, for the several
regional scripts current before the Qin unification in
221 BCE were variants of a single writing system. Char-
acters for specific words might differ from kingdom
to kingdom and even within a kingdom, but such
variations reflect differing dialects or terminologies
FIG. 3. Reconstruction of
the land and water routes rather than differing writing systems.
described in the Ejun Qijie Since the bronze tallies are unique, the extent
tallies. Adapted from Fu-
nakoshi 1972: 78, fig. 2. to which they are representative objects of their
kind is uncertain. Nevertheless, their importance as
documents for the economic history of the Warring
States period cannot be overstated. LVF

Boat Tally Inscription 4

In the year when the Great Minister of War
Shao Yang had defeated the army of Jin at
Xiangling, in the Xiayi month, dayyz hai,
when the king dwelled in the pleasure
palace at Jieying, the Great Intendant of
Public Works Shui took a royal order to

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