On the lacquered eared-cup unearthed in 1995 from the No. 1 Chu tomb at Guodian, Jingmen, Hubei, there is the inscription “Donggong zhi shi 东宫之币.” Among the characters the “donggong” must refer to the crown prince of the Chu state, and the last character, in the light of the characteristics and evolutionary laws of similar phrases in inscriptions on oracle bones and bronzes as well as in those of the Eastern Zhou period, should be deciphered as the word “teacher.” So the whole inscription means the teacher of the Chu crown prince. It can further be inferred that the owner of the tomb might have been the Chu crown prince's teacher, the documents from there were teaching material for the prince, and the tomb and bamboo slips go back to a time earlier than 303 BC.
