Abstract
This article examines the textual construction of two texts, one known as Ernian lüling 二年律令 (Statutes and Ordinances of the Second Year) and the other Zouyan shu 奏讞書 (Book of Submitted Doubtful Cases). They were excavated from tomb no. 247 at Zhangjiashan, Hubei province. While the Ernian lüling text was copied out shortly before its burial in the tomb of a low-level administrator in 186 bc, it had been abstracted earlier in that year from a larger body of legal material, which, in turn, had been edited and compiled from statutes and ordinances inherited from the preceding Qin dynasty. Here, we shall unpack different layers of textual construction and distinguish among errors and variants introduced by low-level copyists, edits and embellishments made by intermediate compilers, and commentary made by experienced legal scribes or central-government officials.
Keywords
Qin dynasty, Han dynasty, law, legal history, textual transmission, textual criticism, scribes, Zhangjiashan, Zouyan shu, Ernian lüling
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