2,300-year-old Chinese silk books return to Beijing after decades in US museum

Ancient Zidanku Silk Manuscripts are older than Dead Sea Scrolls and were illegally taken from China in 1946

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Zhu Ye (right) of the National Cultural Heritage Administration of China receives a certificate of transfer from Chase Robinson (left), director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, during a handover ceremony for the Zidanku Silk Manuscripts in Washington on Friday. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 6:10pm, 18 May 2025

Two volumes of 2,300-year-old silk books – the earliest known in China – arrived in Beijing from the United States in the early hours of Sunday, marking the end of their 79-year journey abroad.

The Zidanku Silk Manuscripts – dating back to around 300BC, during the Warring States Period – are considered the oldest ancient classics ever found in China. They are more than a century older than the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Volumes II and III of the three-volume manuscripts were transferred from the National Museum of Asian Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution in the United States.

Volume I, a larger and more complete work, remains privately owned by the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said efforts were under way to enable the return of Volume I to China.

The manuscripts were illegally excavated in 1942 from a tomb in Zidanku in the city of Changsha in central China. They were first acquired by a Chinese collector, then illegally removed from the country in 1946 by John Hadley Cox, an American collector. The Zidanku Silk Manuscript fragments were gifted to the museum in 1992.

Fragments of the ancient Zidanku Silk Manuscripts are displayed during a handover ceremony at the Chinese embassy in Washington on Friday. Photo: Xinhua

The repatriation of the volumes followed diplomatic efforts by the National Cultural Heritage Administration of China, which began formal negotiations after the Smithsonian published a new ethical returns policy in 2022 on returning objects that it “would not have acquired under present-day standards”.