銀雀山 Bamboo Strips: 47 Years Ago Today, Yinqueshan Han -- "Original" Versions Of Texts From ~ 140 BCE

Sima's bamboo records, nearly 5,000 of these densely-texted strips, were found this morning, in 1972. They were buried with him, a little over 2,000 years earlier.

And among them was an ancient, unadulterated (not yet edited, by later historical scholars) copy of Sun Bin's "The Art of War".

. . . .The Yinqueshan Han (銀雀山) Tombs were accidentally unearthed by construction workers on April 10, 1972. Archaeologists arrived a few days later to excavate the site. The bamboo slips were discovered in Tombs no. 1 and 2 at the foot of Yinqueshan (Yínquè Shān; literally: "Silver Phoenix Mountain"), located southeast of the city of Linyi in the province of Shandong.

Discovered in Tomb no. 1 were 4942 bamboo strips covered in closely written words and included portions of known texts, as well as a number of previously unknown military and divination texts, some of which were shown to resemble chapters in Guanzi and Mozi. The occupant had been identified as a military officer bearing the surname Sima. . . .

Now you know -- as we gaze at the first visible light imagery -- of the edges of a real black hole. In some ways, these texts of bamboo were also beyond a metaphysical "event horizon", as well -- for over 2,000 years, lost -- in the black hole of one soul. . . . so it goes. So it goes.

Hmm. . . four; seven; forty-seven -- or two thousand. . . I wonder if that one purple silken sack, with the pale blue pattern, is. . . somewhere, in there (along with two matched chunks of gold). Onward, amazed.

नमस्ते