There are also two sunken traces on the skull, which Han says might have been left by a strike from a certain instrument, causing a fracture and inflammation of the skull. There were some bony growths around the hole and the scraped traces are indistinct, he says, meaning that the patient survived for a period of time after the operation. In Chinese historical documents there are plentiful astronomical records. Li Xueqin, China's leading historian and director of the Institute of History under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said using modern astronomy is a good method for solving historical puzzles. But it must be based on authentic historical documents.
Experts say the astronomical method has attracted wide attention in the historic field recently.
In a grand project to put precise dates on the three dynasties of Xia, Shang and Zhou, with 170 historians working on 40 specific topics, a quarter of the topics belong to astronomical study. And experts believe that modern astronomy will facilitate historic research. The tomb was first discovered in the early 1990s by local farmers who were digging water control facilities. A great number of bamboo slips have been unearthed, but most of the characters on them were illegible and archeologists had to use modern techniques to reveal their true nature. The book is more than 2,000 years old and is the earliest edition of a Confucian work ever found, according to Xie Fei, the director of the Hebei Cultural Relics Research Institute, who examined the slips along with scholars from the State Cultural Relics Bureau and Beijing's Palace Museum.