In the 1970s, China's archaeologists unearthed many famous archaeological discoveries, such as the Terracotta Warriors and the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng. Of these stunning archaeological finds, the most striking is undoubtedly the Mawangdui Han Tomb located next to the Liuyang River in Changsha, Hunan.
At the end of 1971, the 366 Hospital of the Hunan Provincial Military Region began construction of an underground wartime hospital near Mawangdui as planned. However, during the construction of underground hospitals, landslides were often encountered, and combustible gases also appeared from time to time underground. These strange phenomena surprised the construction workers of the hospital, and finally attracted the attention of archaeologists from the Hunan Provincial Museum, who judged from experience that there must be a huge ancient tomb buried in the ground here.
Because the underground hospital has caused a certain degree of damage to the ancient tomb in the process of construction, in order to further protect these precious ancient cultural relics, archaeologists decided to carry out rescue excavations of this underground tomb.
In January 1972, archaeologists from the Hunan Provincial Museum and the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences began archaeological excavations of Tomb No. 1 in Mawangdui. According to the exploration of archaeologists, this ancient tomb belongs to the ancient tomb of the Han Dynasty, and the scale is very large, with a length of 20 meters from north to south and 17 meters from east to west. In tomb No. 1, archaeologists have found many shocking artifacts, the most famous of which is the corpse of the Mawangdui woman.
At that time, archaeologists did not know the specific identity of this female corpse of Mawangdui, and could only judge that it was an ancient tomb of the Han Dynasty according to the age of Tomb No. 1. In order to further solve the mystery of the identity of the female corpse, in December 1973, archaeologists excavated the second tomb of Mawangdui Ancient Tomb. Although the excavation results show that Tomb No. 2 has been stolen many times as early as the Tang Dynasty, the three seals left in the tomb have successfully solved the mystery of the identity of the female corpse of Mawangdui.
On the three seals excavated from Tomb No. 2, the words "Changsha Xiangxiang", "Seal of the Marquis of Yuan" and "Li Cang" are engraved respectively. Based on these seals, archaeologists judged that the female corpse of Mawangdui was Lady XinChai, the wife of The Han Dynasty Minister Li Cang. However, with the further interpretation of Mawangdui's archaeological data, in recent years, some experts believe that Mrs. Xin Chai's real name is "avoidance", and Xin Chai may be misread. However, this statement is still controversial in the archaeological community, so let's call it Mrs. Xin Chai.
Mrs. Xin Chai's discovery is a great miracle in the history of world archaeology. This is a well-preserved, undecagorated female corpse, and in the history of archaeology, no ancient corpse similar to Mrs. Xin Chai has ever been found. It is different from the mummies of ancient Egypt, as well as from the corpse wax and peat tanned corpse, and is a special type of ancient corpse. From a scientific point of view, Mrs. Xin Chai is called a miracle of ancient embalming, which is really incredible.
One of the most common words used by archaeologists to describe ancient corpses like Mrs. Xin Chai is lifelike. However, Mrs. Xin Chai in the photo is obviously very scary, why do experts use the word lifelike to describe her? This also starts from the excavation process of Mrs. Xin Chai.
When Mrs. Xin Chai was unearthed, she was wrapped in more than 20 layers of silk clothing and soaked in a slightly reddish coffin. At that time, the technology of cultural relics protection was relatively backward, and archaeologists did not expect that Mrs. Xin Chai would be so well preserved. Therefore, when Mrs. Xin Chai was unearthed, it took up to a week for experts to peel off 20 layers of silk clothes. In the process, Mrs. Sinchai was not protected in any way.
When archaeologists saw the true face of Mrs. Xin Chai, one of the first words that came to mind was lifelike, because the newly unearthed Mrs. Xin Chai was so well preserved that it was like falling into a deep sleep. In fact, at this time, mrs. Xin Chai's body has been damaged to a certain extent due to the lack of effective protection, but it still looks lifelike, and the skin still has a high elasticity.
At that time, the archaeologists involved in the excavation of Mawangdui No. 1 Tomb all agreed that Mrs. Xin Chai was very much in line with the adjective of lifelike. However, why did mrs. Xin Chai, who people saw in the photo later, look so terrible? This was mainly due to the lack of awareness of the protection of cultural relics at that time.
At that time, the cultural relics protection technology itself was relatively backward, and more importantly, the general lack of awareness of cultural relics protection led to long-term contact with the air after Mrs. Xin Chai was excavated, and it was not until a year later that a glass coffin was symbolically made. However, this glass coffin does not play a real protective role, and cannot effectively isolate the air and humidity from the outside world.
Moreover, because Mrs. Xin Chai is very famous and the best-preserved ancient corpse in the world, she was sent to many places for exhibition. In the process of exhibition, there is also a lack of effective protection, often placed directly on the platform for display, visitors can even directly touch with their hands. Because of these reasons, Mrs. Xin Chai's original lifelike appearance became unsightly, and after being photographed by the camera, it gave people a terrifying feeling.
It was not until 2003 that the museum's cultural relics experts realized this problem, so they tailored a constant temperature and humidity "underground dormitory" to restore the environment in the Mawangdui tomb as much as possible. From the process of Mrs. Xin Chai's excavation, it can be found that the Newly unearthed Mrs. Xin Chai at that time was indeed vivid, but because the later protection measures were not in place, Mrs. Xin Chai became the way she is in the current photo