Over the past two decades, remarkable collections of Warring States, Qin, and Han manuscripts have been purchased on the behalf of major academic institutions in China. This article introduces one of the latest acquisitions, the Han bamboo strips donated to Peking University in January 2009. Although the Peking University Han strips offer exciting new materials that promise to significantly advance the study of early China, research on them has been encumbered by the fact that they were not archaeologically excavated. This has invited concerns not only over the manuscripts’ authenticity, but also about the role our scholarship plays in fostering a market for looted artifacts. The article reviews current debates over the authentication of purchased bamboo strips, and discusses how the Peking University Han manuscripts were authenticated in particular. A refutation is given to recent arguments that the Peking University Laozi is a forgery. A methodology is then proposed to positively authenticate purchased manuscripts, taking the Peking University Cang Jie pian as a case study and establishing its antiquity. The article concludes by addressing the professional ethics of scholars working with looted manuscripts, giving voice to the “rescue archaeology” position largely adopted in Chinese scholarship.

The Xinian or Annalistic History is one of an important collection of ancient bamboo texts donated anonymously to Qinghua University in 2008. The Xinian covers events from the history of the Western Zhou dynasty (1045–771 b.c.e.), through the Spring and Autumn Period (771–475 b.c.e.) and into the Warring States era (475–221 b.c.e.). Since the first publication of this manuscript in 2011, it has been the subject of much research, though this has usually been focused on the sections which have important parallels within the transmitted tradition. This article proposes a new way of understanding the Xinian, as a compilation produced from at least five source texts, and provides a complete translation of the entire text. Furthermore, although the contents of the Xinian are frequently at variance with the transmitted tradition, in particular the account of events given in the Zuozhuan, in some instances it may prove the more reliable source. The Xinian also provides some information concerning the history of the early Warring States era that helps to explain events in this generally badly documented era.