Shuihudi Qin bamboo texts

The Shuihudi Qin bamboo texts (simplified Chinese: 睡虎地秦简; traditional Chinese: 睡虎地秦簡; pinyin: Shuìhǔdì Qín jiǎn) are a cache of early Chinese texts written on bamboo slips. Excavated in December 1975 from Tomb #11 at Shuìhǔdì (睡虎地) in Yunmeng County, Hubei, they were deposited c. 217 BCE and preserved a wide array of legal statutes, official documents, and practical manuals used within Qin administration.

Written by a Qin scribe , the texts on the roughly 1155 slips of bamboo record a range of Qin laws and public documents. Their contents have been since published in the book Shuìhǔdì Qínmù Zhújiǎn (睡虎地秦墓竹簡). The cache has been deemed one of the most valuable epigraphic sources yet uncovered for understanding the governmental, legal, and socioeconomic systems of the late Warring States period and the Qin period. Subsequently, the 2002 and 2005 discoveries of the Liye Qin Slips in Liye Ancient City, Hunan have been deemed to be of equal, if not greater, significance.