Over the past few years, additional evidence has surfaced that supplements my prior authentication of the Peking University Han strips, and in particular the *Cang Jie pian 蒼頡篇 manuscript from this collection. The present article surveys this fresh evidence, including confirmation of spiraling verso lines on the archaeologically excavated Shuihudi 睡虎地 Han strips, as well as further textual parallels, both with a previously unidentified Cang Jie pian strip from Niya 尼雅, and also with newly published content from the Shuiquanzi 水泉子 *Cang Jie pian. The article also critically examines in greater detail the methodology previously employed to authenticate the Peking University Han strips. Limitations are acknowledged, both in regard to supporting negative appraisals, and in the determination of “novelty” for manuscript features. To demonstrate these issues, the article analyzes a conflict between the Peking University and Shuiquanzi Cang Jie pian manuscripts and introduces the publication of the so-called “Han board” *Cang Jie pian witness largely unknown to the field before.

Over the past two decades, remarkable collections of Warring States, Qin, and Han manuscripts have been purchased on the behalf of major academic institutions in China. This article introduces one of the latest acquisitions, the Han bamboo strips donated to Peking University in January 2009. Although the Peking University Han strips offer exciting new materials that promise to significantly advance the study of early China, research on them has been encumbered by the fact that they were not archaeologically excavated. This has invited concerns not only over the manuscripts’ authenticity, but also about the role our scholarship plays in fostering a market for looted artifacts. The article reviews current debates over the authentication of purchased bamboo strips, and discusses how the Peking University Han manuscripts were authenticated in particular. A refutation is given to recent arguments that the Peking University Laozi is a forgery. A methodology is then proposed to positively authenticate purchased manuscripts, taking the Peking University Cang Jie pian as a case study and establishing its antiquity. The article concludes by addressing the professional ethics of scholars working with looted manuscripts, giving voice to the “rescue archaeology” position largely adopted in Chinese scholarship.