National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties
of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

Shiji (Shiki), or "History of the Grand Historian," was written by Sima Qian (Shibasen) in the Early Han Dynasty. It records historical events from the era of the Yellow Emperor (Kôtei) to the era of the Emperor Wu (Butei) of the Early Han Dynasty as a series of chronicles in the form of annals and biographies and is often regarded as the first official history of China. Vol. 29, the second half of Book 7, the "Treatise on Rivers and Canals," was hand-copied in the Tang Dynasty. Originally in the form of a scroll, it was changed to a bounded format. The first page only has one line, the second and third pages have 25 and 24 lines, respectively and the fourth page contains the conclusion with 13 lines of the main text. With a single line skipped, the end has the line "The 7th Scroll of the Treatise on Rivers and Canals," "Shiji 29" inserted. With page margins, each line has 17 characters with two lines of annotations. It does not have any missing characters, but it does have corrected parts in the main text. It is considered valuable as it describes the ancient format of Shiji as known in the Tang Dynasty.
On the back of the page below the last line and the binding, a red seal with the character "藤" and the title is visible. It is also published in old historical records such as "Jingji Fangguzhi (Keiseki-Hôkoshi)" and reproduced in "Rongan Xuanjiushu Sizhong (Yôankenkyûsho-Shishu)."