This essay draws from my thoughts and experience examining newly excavated texts. I build on domestication theory and past academic work on Chu slips to suggest that a careful reading of texts and the resolution of key related questions provides a way forward for contributing to and deepening existing scholarship. I examine and interpret the five sets of slips and commentaries appended to this piece to demonstrate how a reader can actively apply the key philological concepts of determining pronunciation, ascertaining alternative wordings, and seeking meaning. This indicates how it may be possible to ascertain and interpret ancient texts by combining efforts that determine characters, explore the relationship between characters and pronunciations, and locate unearthed as well as received texts within a broader linguistic context.