Among the cultural relics on display at the Guanfu Museum in Beijing is a jade cicada made of White Jade, with a white body and exquisite carvings, but this jade cicada is not a fine ornament, but a jade cicada that was placed in the mouth of the deceased during the funeral.
Before the ancient concubine was buried, not only did the jade be placed in the mouth, but also the anus was blocked with jade, and the other nine tricks were blocked with jade. So what is the reason for this?
The reason for this is mainly to preserve the dignity of the deceased after death and prevent the outflow of corpse fluid from decomposing after death.
The wisdom of the ancients
Human life, like things, has a beginning and an end. In the Xunzi Ritual Treatise, it is said: "Death is like life, and death is like survival", which means to serve the dead as if they were living, and to treat the dead as if they were still alive. The so-called "death is like life" is to express respect for life and the memory of the deceased.
In feudal rule, status meant hierarchy. The lives of ordinary people are like grass, and even if they die, it is difficult to have a grand funeral. But the royal emperor is different, the emperor symbolizes the supreme dominance, the glory and wealth enjoyed before death, naturally want to be brought to another world after death.
Among the royal imperial tombs, there is not only the emperor, but also the empress mausoleum and the concubine mausoleum.
The hot weather, coupled with the snakes, insects, rats and ants in the dungeon, will aggravate the decay of the body, not only will the original appearance of the deceased become unrecognizable, but even in the process of decay, the coffin will continue to flow from the corpse. This is something that must be avoided by the royal family, which is extremely face-conscious.
Moreover, the ancients believed that the cycle of life and death, the soul returned to heaven and the earth. Death is another reincarnation of life, in another world to live like before death, in order to allow the soul to ascend to heaven at the same time, but also to pay attention to the protection of the form. Therefore, the imperial royal family, which was at the peak of its power, paid special attention to funeral rites and the preservation of corpses.
Therefore, on the issue of the storage of corpses, the ancients came up with many ways.
First, the remains are cleaned. The ancients often used a liquid such as wine to clean the remains, which not only played a certain bactericidal effect, but also did not have a putrid odor, but also delayed the decay of the body.
In the Mawangdui No. 1 Han Tomb, ethanol and acetic acid were detected in the coffin. There is also a record in the Zhou Li Commentary: "The king collapsed in a big way, and used straw to be a straw", pointing out that after the death of the prince, he should be purged with black wine. This proves that the ancients often used special liquids to preserve the remains.
Second, use objects to block the body of the nine tips. The ancients believed that jade had an embalming function, not only jade clothes made specifically for the preservation of corpses, but also the nine tricks mentioned above. In the Zhou Li, it is recorded that "Bi Chun uses the corpse to collect the corpse", which means to cover the mouth and body of the deceased with jade pieces. It is also recorded in the "Baopuzi": "If the gold and jade are in the Nine Tips, the dead are immortal."
Nine plugs are more common, and the nine plugs generally refer to eye covers, earplugs, nasal plugs, jade mouth plugs, jade plugs and jade brass. The purpose of the nine tricks is to prevent the "essence" in the body from escaping to ensure the immortality of the corpse, and the second is that the ancient royal funeral ceremony generally stopped the spirit sacrifice for a long time, in order to prevent the body from being placed for too long, the corpse fluid oozed out after decomposition, damaging the dignity of the royal family.
Among the Nine Tricks, the most important is the jade, which is generally made in the style of a cicada, "the larvae of the cover cicada, which enter the soil as a pupa, and after excavation, it still becomes a cicada." That is, it is hoped that the soul of the deceased can be separated from the dead body, and that the deceased can be reborn like a cicada, expressing the ancients' desire for new life.
Finally, the body is placed in a multi-layered heavy coffin to seal it. In ancient times, the Son of Heaven used a four-fold coffin, shanggong and Hou Bozi male decreased in turn, in general, the higher the status, the longer the time of the spiritual sacrifice, therefore, the use of heavy coffins, you can isolate the smell of decay of the corpse.
At the same time, it also uses wood with its own aroma, such as nan wood and pine wood, which plays a role in isolating odors.
Antiseptic cheats
In addition to the above-mentioned methods of embalming with jade, there are many methods used to embalm corpses in ancient times, not only the mainland, but also other countries in history also have a culture of embalming corpses.
In Europe, many countries were theocratic, and the kings of the country also served as archbishops, and these kings hid in the burial chambers under the church after death, which was considered the closest place to God in the Middle Ages.
However, the church space is limited, in order to prevent the spread of corpse odor, often after the death of the deceased with sulfur and garlic to prevent the devil, vampire and zombie covetousness, and then the holy artifact is embedded in the coffin, the corpse is blessed, the body is placed in the sarcophagus carved by the whole stone, only the lid is active, covered with camphor leaves, ivy, etc. on the body, and finally seal the gap of the sarcophagus after the coffin is covered, keep the sarcophagus sealed, and prevent the smell from overflowing.
In the mainland, the body of Empress Xiaozhuang was also placed in a sarcophagus, and even if it was suspended for thirty-seven years, there was no corpse odor.
In ancient Egypt, people mastered a set of mature embalming techniques, that is, to make corpses into dry corpses, which is what we often call mummies. The main principle is to create an environment for corpses in which bacteria cannot survive.
First, the ancient Egyptians removed the most watery parts of the corpse, the internal organs and brain, and emptyed the fluid from the abdominal cavity and head into the dry material for embalming.
After dehydrating the skin, the body is soaked in alkali for more than a month to dry it completely. Finally, the use of linen wrapping, that is, breathable and not easy to contact with the outside bacterium, the body is well protected.
In the mainland, there are also examples of the use of multiple layers of textiles to wrap the body for embalming after the disposal of the body, and the female corpse excavated from the Mawangdui No. 1 Han Tomb is wrapped in a total of twenty layers of various clothes, and the ribbon is tied from head to toe, and the face is also covered with a mask, which is not decayed for thousands of years when unearthed, and it is lifelike.
In the tomb of Liu Sheng in the Western Han Dynasty, a golden jade coat was also unearthed to keep the corpse incorruptible, but unfortunately, the golden jade robe did not protect the corpse from decay.
There are also very common methods, such as in the first century AD, the Mongols, Kyrgyz people wrapped the body in reeds, hung on a tree or bracket to dry, and then put it in a coffin.
African New Guineans once wrapped the body in palm leaves and placed it on the corpse table and roasted it over a small fire to accelerate the evaporation of the body's moisture. There are also methods of applying wax or honey to corpses to delay the decomposition of corpses.
There are also some that are not artificially disposed of, but are caused by natural factors that do not decompose. For example, in 1991, an iceman was found in the Alps, and radioisotope testing can tell that the iceman came from 5300 years ago, which is the most complete and oldest ancient corpse to date. His internal organs, skin, and even eyeballs are intact.
In ancient mainland china, there were also ways to place ice cubes for antiseptics, but due to technical limitations, ice cubes could only rely on weather to make ice and store, so ice block antiseptics did not achieve good results.
summary
Although the ancients were limited by technology, they had a lot of wisdom that was ahead of their time. With the progress of the times, the embalming of corpses has also reached a higher level, but people have also chosen more simple and civilized ways, through cremation and other ways, proper disposal of remains.