P.T.12974,an ancient hand-written Tibetan employment contract,provides precious materials for studying the format of ancient Tibetan employment contracts as well as the relationship between the employers and employees.By comparing P.T.12974 with Chinese employment contracts of the same period,this paper argues that the contract discussed here followed Chinese contracts in format while reaining its own features.Employers and employees were more nearly equal.Basically,the employees traded their labor for food as temporarily hired laborers.