The Stone Drums of Qin or Qin Shi Gu (Chinese: 秦石鼓; pinyin: Qín Shígǔ; Wade–Giles: Ch'in Shih Ku) are ten granite boulders bearing the oldest known "stone" inscriptions in ancient Chinese (much older inscriptions on pottery, bronzes and the oracle bones exist). Because these inscribed stones are shaped roughly like drums, they have been known as the Stone Drums of Qin since at least the 7th century.[1][2]
Their fame is because they are the oldest known stone inscriptions in China, making them a priceless treasure for epigraphers. The stone drums are now kept in the Palace Museum, Beijing. They vary in height from 73 cm to 87.5 cm (with one which was at one point used as a mortar reduced by the grinding to 58 cm), and from 56 to 80.1 cm in diameter. The Stone Drums weigh about 400 kg. each.
- ^ The name 石鼓 Shigu, the Stone Drums, is first evidenced in Li Xian’s (李賢; 651-684) commentary on the Book of the Later Han, juan 16, p.11a (cited in Mattos p.21).
- ^ Gilbert L. Mattos, The Stone Drums of Ch'in (Monumenta Serica Monograph Series, 19). Nettetal, BRD: Steyler Verlag, 1988. Paperback, 497 pp. Reviewed by Wagner, D.B. in Acta Orientalia, 1990, 51: 241-256.