University of Chicago professor on repatriation and global significance of the Chu Silk Manuscripts

After nearly eight decades abroad, volumes II and III of the Chu Silk Manuscripts have finally returned to China this May. In this interview, Donald Harper, Centennial Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Chicago, reflects on the historic moment of their repatriation from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art.

Unearthed from a tomb in Zidanku, Changsha, the manuscripts were illegally removed from China in the 1940s and passed through institutions across the US for nearly 80 years. Harper recounts the emotional significance of their return and praises the decades of research led by Professor Li Ling that helped make it possible.

In this segment, Donald Harper reads from the newly published English edition of "The Chu Silk Manuscripts from Zidanku, Changsha (Hunan Province)," co-translated with Lothar von Falkenhausen of the University of California, Los Angeles. Harper hopes the publication will spark global comparative study and deeper appreciation of Chinese history.

"Now, people can look at the English edition and have an exact representation of what these Zidanku Silk Manuscripts are and what their position is in world civilization," he says.