The fourth-century-BC Guodiann Manuscripts from Chuu and the composition of the 'Laotzyy'

The Guodiann manuscripts consist of seven hundred thirty bamboo strips with legibly written texts found in a tomb near the ancient capital of Chuu, in modern Hwubeei province. They date from about 300BC and include thirteen different texts, as identified by modern Chinese scholars. The content includes about forty percent of the received text of the "Laotzyy" spread over three separate manuscripts. The shortest of these also includes two heretofore unknown pieces, one a cosmogonic account identifying Tay I as the creator and the other a cosmological text on the "Way of Heaven". The text we know as the transmitted "Laotzyy" is not represented integrally in the Guodiann materials; rather we have in these strips a large part of the individual passages out of which the transmitted "Laotzyy" must later have arisen.