Wan Quanwen, executive deputy director of Hubei Provincial Museum, told reporters that in the 1950s, a large number of Chu tombs excavated in Changsha provided an opportunity for the establishment of Chu culture. In 1970s and 1980s, archaeological excavations in the old places of Chu, such as Hubei, Hunan, Henan and Anhui, appeared one after another, especially the discovery of the tomb of Zeng Houyi in Suizhou, which made the study of Chu culture flourish.
Liu Yutang, vice president of Hubei Academy of Social Sciences, also believes that archaeological discoveries and the deepening of their research and understanding have aroused great interest in the study of Chu culture in academic circles and laid a good foundation for its expansion and perfection.
"It is on the basis of fully possessing the latest information that the research on Chu culture has made new breakthroughs and new progress." Liu Yutang said: "With the continuous emergence of a large number of Chu bamboo slips, the rich information they carry provides the possibility for further study of Chu culture. For example, handed down literature records that Chu moved its capital six or seven times, and the capital was named Danyang and Ying successively. However, the bamboo slips Chu Ju in Qing Dynasty recorded that Chu moved its capital as many as 14 or 15 times, but the name of Danyang was not seen, which will cause the academic circles to rethink the capital of Chu. For another example, according to the handed down literature, the ancestor of Chu people, Ji Lian, will not be later than Yu Xia. However, in the Bamboo Slips of Chu Ci in Qing Dynasty, Ji Lian and Pan Geng are linked together. If this Pan Geng is the Pan Geng of Shang Dynasty, wouldn't it be 700 years ago to push forward the era of Jilian activities? There are countless such cases. "
Cai Jingquan, director of the Chu Studies Institute of Huazhong Normal University, said that the study of Chu culture reached its climax in the mid-1990s, and the most representative achievement was the Chu Literature Library edited by Zhang. This series of books is a concentrated display of Chu culture research in the 20th century. "After years of accumulation, Chu culture has achieved comprehensive, multi-angle, systematic research and summary and comprehensive results. Therefore, the current research on Chu culture is mainly to follow the new archaeological discoveries, conduct in-depth and meticulous research, and strive to solve the problems that cannot be solved due to data constraints. " Cai Jingquan said that in addition to paying attention to archaeological discoveries, comparing Chu culture with other regional cultures is also of positive significance for promoting multi-level and all-round Chu culture research. Wan Baiquan told reporters that the comparative study of Chu culture and other regional cultures originated in the early 1990s. Specifically, it can be divided into three levels: macro, meso and micro. For example, Zhang's Outline of Comparative Research on Ancient Greek Culture and Chu Culture and Wang Jichao's Colorful: Chu Culture and Greek and Roman Culture have made a macro comparison between Chu culture and ancient Greek and Roman culture. The middle view is to compare Chu culture with other regional cultures in China at the same time. For example, Zhang's On Qin Chu clearly shows Qin Chu's national origin, historical road, cultural characteristics and achievements, national development and destiny, profoundly reveals the historical reasons for the rise and fall of Qin Chu, and the decisive role of Qin Chu's personality tendency in the formation of China's national character. The so-called microcosmic comparison is to compare and discuss some specific problems between Chu culture and other regional cultures, which is also the most fruitful part of the comparative study of regional cultures at present.
Liu Yutang agrees with this. He believes that the comparative study of regional culture is of great significance. Because only through comparative study can we truly discover the uniqueness and individuality of different regional cultures; Only through comparative study can we accurately grasp the process and law of collision, exchange and integration between different regional cultures, and then discover the path of the formation and development of Chinese culture.
Cai Jingquan also said that it is one of the focuses of Chu studies to compare and discuss Chu culture with various regional cultures that coexist in the world. This will not only broaden the horizons of Chu culture research, but also promote the in-depth development of China regional culture and China ancient history and culture research in the new century. Liu Yutang said that although the study of Chu culture is in a leading position in the study of regional culture, there are still some problems, such as the weakness of multidisciplinary research and the lack of breakthroughs in some key research fields for many years. He believes that the brilliance of Chu culture research in the last century was mostly based on shocking archaeological excavations. If there is no sensational discovery in Chu culture archaeology, there will probably be a "bottleneck" in Chu culture research, or even nothing to say. Therefore, the academic circles need to further analyze the archaeological data of Chu culture and seek the breakthrough and innovation in methodology. Wan believes that from the current situation of Chu studies, it is mainly promoted by Chu bamboo slips and silk books. The reason for this research situation is that the major discoveries of Chu culture archaeology have decreased compared with the last century, and some unresolved problems are difficult to solve without new materials.
In view of this situation, Cai Jingquan put forward his own thinking. He said that the scarcity of major archaeological discoveries is just one of the reasons why Chu culture research is not as sensational as it was in the 1990s. In addition, due to the development of large-scale projects such as the Three Gorges Reservoir and the South-to-North Water Transfer Project, a large number of cultural relics have been discovered, and it takes time to sort out and digest these archaeological materials. Only by gradually introducing these newly discovered research results can Chu culture researchers continue to deepen their research accordingly.
Luo, a professor at the School of History of Wuhan University, stressed that it is also of great significance to strengthen the study of ancient Chinese characters in addition to comprehensively sorting out the archaeological data system of Chu culture. He told reporters: "An accurate interpretation of written materials such as bamboo slips, seals, coins and utensils can not only help researchers find new breakthroughs, but also re-examine and think about past achievements. Improving the accuracy of researchers' identification of unearthed documents is conducive to brewing the next climax of Chu culture research.