To the two Chinese tomb robbers who found it beneath a pile of rotting planks in 1934, the ragged piece of silk bearing strange, barely discernible characters and drawings looked like nothing more than a slimy piece of grave refuse. For three decades, it passed from buyer to buyer, largely unknown to archaeologists or art scholars. Then in 1965, the manuscript was bought by New York Psychiatrist and Art Collector Arthur Sackler. Last week, at a Columbia University symposium, the Ch'u Silk Manuscript, as it is now called, was examined and discussed by 40 of the free world's leading...
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