ABSTRACT
This chapter first introduces the primary excavated sources for analyzing Qin legal statutes, the Shuihudi corpus. It then goes on to examine various physical features of the manuscripts, which demonstrate awareness of the need for a material document capable of being altered to accommodate legal changes and of being easily read and properly applied by those tasked with its implementation. This “form and function” analysis is accomplished by analyzing the orthographic and calligraphic features of the legal statutes (or statutory extracts), media-based implications of composing the text on bamboo slips, and the use of orthographic and non-orthographic forms of punctuation.
