A Study of Zou yan shu, Unearthed from Zhangjiashan Han Dynasty Tomb 247

From December 1983 to January 1984, 228 bamboo strips were unearthed in M247 at Jiangling, Hubei. These strips contained a collection of criminal cases called Zou Yan Shu, as well as 526 strips containing Laws of the 2nd Year. This discovery effectively patched a gap in judicature during the transition from the Qin to the Han. Beginning in 1985, a research group, Li Xueqin, and Peng Hao, began publishing the content of these strips in Wenwu. Soon scholars all over the world began researching the strips. In 2008, the Bamboo and Silk Manuscript Center at Wuhan University used infrared imaging (as well as referencing Cai Wanjinâs revisions of the text and the research of other scholars) to make sense of a very muddled text. This also brought about many breakthroughs in research on the Zou Yan Shu. Now scholars understand much more concerning judicature during the Qin-Han period and how it differed from that of pre-Qin times. Despite this, few scholars have attempted a comprehensive analysis of the 22 cases found in this work. There is much research to be done on legal terminology in the text, the judiciary writing process in Zou Yan Shu, the reasons for compiling these 22 cases, knowledge of judiciary principles during Qin-Han gained from these cases, and several keys to unjust, falsified, and mistaken cases. This dissertation attempts to utilized prior understanding of the scholarly community to systematically and comprehensively analyzing all 22 cases and to explicate the meaning of the title Zou Yan Shu, judiciary terminology, the judiciary process, adjudicatory results, and reasons for the unjust, falsified, and mistaken cases. It was discovered that the purpose for this compilation was to educate law-enforcement officials and portrays the message that from receiving the initial report to apprehending and trying the criminal to gathering evidence to issuing the final judgment, if the principle âall is decided by the lawâ is not strictly adhered to then mistakes are easily made. In addition, the way documents are written in Zhou Yan Shu is closely related to the judiciary process from the county-level all the way to the Commandant of Justice, revealing how this process worked at the various levels.