Guodian Bamboo Strips

One of the most exciting events of this century, for Taoist scholars and practitioners alike, has been the discovery of the Guodian Bamboo Strips.

The number of Guodian bamboo strips is about 800, together bearing approximately 10,000 Chinese characters. Some of the strips comprise the oldest existing version of Laozi's Daode Jing.
The remaining strips contain the writings of Confucian disciples.

Writing for the Harvard Gazette, Andrea Shen captures a bit of the excitement surrounding the discovery of the Guodian Bamboo Strips:

Near a river in Guodian, China, not far from a farmhouse made of earth and thatched with straw, Chinese archaeologists in 1993 discovered a tomb dating back to the fourth century B.C.

The tomb was just slightly larger than the coffin and stone sarcophagus within. Scattered on the floor were bamboo strips, wide as a pencil, and up to twice as long. On closer scrutiny, scholars realized they had found something remarkable.

"This is like the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls" ...

These texts radically alter scholars' understanding of not just the principles of, and relationship between, Taoism and Confucianism, two major streams of Chinese thought; they affect our understanding of Chinese philology, and reopen debate on the historical identities of Confucius and Laozi.