Guodian

In 1993, archaeologists excavating at Guodian village (Shayang district, Jingmen, Hubei) opened a Warring States Chu tomb dated to around 300 BCE. Inside they found 804 bamboo slips bearing texts — among them three sets of the Laozi (甲, 乙, 丙). The Guodian text is the oldest extant version of the Daodejing, a century and a half older than Mawangdui. It covers only about two-fifths of the received text and follows a different chapter order; the division into Dao jing and De jing is not yet visible. The slips' publication (《郭店楚墓竹简》, 1998) was a sensation, revealing how many textual variants circulated before canonization.