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. The collection consists of more than 620 bamboo slips, which were used by the ancient Chinese before the use of paper was popularized. They measure 16.2 centimeters by 0.7 centimeters and contain as many as 20 characters each. There are also traces of the silk strings that were used to connect them.
Visitors tend to tiptoe and lower their voices.
Mummies found around Urumchi knock the idea that ancient China was free of any Western influence. A two-inch beard covers his face. He would have been an imposing figure in life, for he once stood six feet six inches tall. So writes Elizabeth Barber of the one known as Cherchen Man. Clad in finely woven woolens, he almost looks as if he could rise out of bed and begin another day in what must have been a difficult life.