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The Sword of Goujian (Traditional Chinese: 越王勾践剑,
Simplified Chinese: 越王勾践剑) is an
archaeological artifact of the Spring and Autumn period (771 to 403BC)
found in 1965 in Hubei, China. Cast in tin bronze, it is renowned for its
unusual sharpness and resistance to tarnish rarely seen in artifacts so
old. This historical artifact of ancient China is currently in the
possession of the Hubei Provincial Museum.
In 1965, while an archaeological survey was
being performed along the second main aqueduct of the Zhang River
Reservoir in Jingzhou, Hubei, a series of ancient tombs were discovered in
Jiangling County. A dig started in the middle of October 1965, ending in
January 1966, eventually revealing more than fifty ancient tombs of the
Chu State.
More than 2,000 artifacts were recovered
from the sites, including an ornate bronze sword, found inside a casket
together with a human skeleton. The casket was discovered in December
1965, at Wangshan site #1, 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) from the ruins of Ying (郢,
currently called Jinan 纪南), an ancient
capital of Chu.
The sword was found sheathed in a wooden scabbard
finished in black lacquer. The scabbard had an almost air-tight fit with
the sword body. Unsheathing the sword revealed an untarnished blade,
despite the tomb being soaked in underground water for over 2,000 years.
On one side of the blade, two columns of
text are visible. Eight characters are written in an ancient script, now
known as Bird-worm seal script (literally "birds and worms
characters", owing to the intricate decorations of the defining
strokes), a variant of seal script. Initial analysis of the text
deciphered six of the characters, "King of Yue" (越王)
and "made this sword for [his] personal use" (自作用剑).
The remaining two characters were assumed to be the name of the particular
King of Yue.
From the sword's origin in 510 BC to its
demise at the hands of the Chu in 334 BC, nine kings ruled Yue, including
Goujian, Lu Cheng, Bu Shou, and Zhu Gou. The identity of the king in the
sword inscription sparked debate among archeologists and Chinese language
scholars. The discussion was carried out mostly via letter, and involved
famous scholars such as Guo Moruo. After more than two months, the
experts[who?] started to form a consensus that the original owner of the
sword was Goujian (勾践), the King of Yue made
famous by his perseverance in time of hardship. |