The Tsinghua Bamboo Slips, Chinese Texts from the Warring States Period, Including China's Oldest Multiplication Table

In 2008 Tsinghua University acquired a collection of 2388 bamboo slips on which were written texts dating from the Warring States period (480 BCE - 221 BCE). The find location of the slips was never divulged; it was probably a tomb in the area of Hubei or Hunan province. Radiocarbon dating confirmed the general age of the slips. These bamboo manuscripts are especially significant since they were buried about 100 years before Qin Shi Huang conducted a "literary holocaust" with the burning of books and burying of scholars from 213-210 BCE.

In 2014 it was announced that 21 of the slips, when placed in the right order, are a decimal multiplication table for multiplying numbers up to 99.5