Two volumes of an ancient Chinese silk manuscript illegally taken overseas 79 years ago have returned to their home in Changsha, Central China's Hunan province.

A ceremony was held at the Hunan Museum on Monday to mark the official repatriation of Volumes II and III of the Zidanku Silk Manuscripts, titled Wuxing Ling and Gongshou Zhan respectively. They will be permanently archived in the museum.

The manuscripts, the earliest Chinese silk texts discovered, and the only known ones from the Warring States Period (475-221 BC) found in China, are named after the Zidanku area of Changsha, from where they were stolen by grave robbers in 1942, before being smuggled to the United States in 1946.

The 2,300-year-old manuscripts, comprising over 900 characters, are the earliest known examples of a classical Chinese book in the true sense, playing a crucial role in the study of ancient Chinese characters and historical documents.