Details of Mawangdui Tomb

Mawangdui Han Tomb is located in Dongtundu Township, the eastern suburb of Changsha City, Hunan Province (now Mawangdui Street in Furong District), facing Liuyang River. It is the three tombs of Li Cang, Prime Minister of Changsha in the Western Han Dynasty, Xin Zhui, wife of Li Cang, and their sons or brothers. After excavation, a well-preserved female corpse and many funerary objects of great scientific, historical and research value were found, which became 1972 the top ten archaeological discoveries in China and important archaeological discoveries in the world. All the unearthed cultural relics have been moved to Hunan Provincial Museum, which has the exhibition hall of Mawangdui Han Tomb, which is divided into two parts: the exhibition of unearthed cultural relics and the exhibition of tomb pit sites.

The tomb site was originally a large mound raised on the flat land of the river bend. According to legend, it was the tomb of Ma Yin, king of Chu in the Five Dynasties, and his family, hence the name "Mawangdui". A mound protrudes from east to west, and the two mounds are more than 20 meters apart. The top is flat and the bottom is connected, which looks like a saddle, so some people call it "saddle pile".

dig

Mawangdui Han Tomb has never been stolen for more than two thousand years and is well preserved. Therefore, a large number of cultural relics have been unearthed, especially the magical female corpse unearthed in Tomb No.1 for 2,000 years and a large number of silk documents unearthed in Tomb No.3, which provided detailed information for the historical research in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty and shocked the world. Tomb No.1 was sealed with white paste when it was unearthed, so the female corpse was still well preserved after 2000. When it was discovered, there was a gas jet burning, but because the gas was not collected in time and the specific components were not known, it became a mystery that the wet corpse of a thousand-year-old woman corpse was still well preserved.

Female corpse

A well-preserved female corpse was unearthed from Tomb No.1 excavated for the first time. According to research, it is Xin Zhui, the wife of Li Cang, who is about fifty years old. When she was unearthed, her soft tissues were elastic, her joints could move and her blood vessels were clearly visible. She is a wet corpse, which is unprecedented in the history of world archaeology. Since then, this ancient corpse has been named Mawangdui corpse. After being dissected by experts from Hunan Medical College, the body was kept in the Hunan Provincial Museum, which has been open to tourists for a long time and attracted tens of millions of tourists from all over the world.

paint

A large number of funerary lacquerware, such as cups, plates, cosmetic boxes, etc. , No.1 tomb unearthed. The words "Xing Junshi" and "Xing Jun Wine" are engraved on the inner bottom of the cup and plate, and the appearance is as bright as new, showing the essence of lacquer manufacturing in the early Han Dynasty. Some scholars believe that these lacquerware should have been produced in Sichuan at that time.

Silk painting

The coffin in Tomb No.1 is covered with a beautiful T-shaped silk painting. The upper, middle and lower parts of the picture show the scenes in the sky, on the ground and underground respectively, which embodies the idea of fairy magic in the early Han Dynasty. Scholars believe that the function of this painting is to guide the dead to heaven.

Mawangdui silk book

A large number of silk books have been unearthed in Tomb No.3, including the Book of Changes, Laozi, letters from the Warring States Period, health-preserving prescriptions in the early Han Dynasty and other academic and astrological documents. Among them, the Book of Changes and Laozi are quite different from today's books, and they are considered to be one of the widely circulated manuscripts before they are formally finalized. A large number of astrological documents are helpful to understand divination and astrology in the early Han Dynasty. The font of silk is close to that of Han Li, but it is unique, and it is called "Mawangdui" by the book circle.