Exploring the truth | Taoists? The wonder of the excavations in ancient tombs, techniques that modern science cannot explain

Preface:

The British scholar Joseph Needham once said: "Taoist thought is the foundation of Chinese science and technology." However, in China, for various reasons, it is difficult for us to see through the truth of Taoism.

In 1971, the Mawangdui tomb, which can be called the "Taoist treasure house", was excavated. With the great influence of mrs. Xin Chai, we have been able to travel through two thousand years of time and intuitively appreciate the long-lost technologies, knowledge and ideas.

Today, we will talk about this Taoist mysterious Mawangdui.

The mysterious "ghost fire"

The story begins in 1970. This year, the trend of "digging deep holes and accumulating grain" swept the whole country, and the 366Th Hospital of the People's Liberation Army also began to dig an air defense bunker in Mawangdui, five kilometers east of Changsha City, under the call of the state. However, the ambitious underground works were "interfered" by some mysterious force from the very beginning.

At that time, the team digging the Mawangdui was divided into two teams, and the eastern team encountered a serious collapse after digging less than ten meters forward, and the soil that flew down buried several officers and soldiers into the hole, and the other soldiers immediately rescued.

When the cave was dug to more than ten meters, a layer of hard laterite appeared on the cave wall below. When the warriors managed to penetrate the laterite layer, a strange phenomenon occurred, and many thin and soft white paste mud suddenly appeared on the ground. For safety reasons, the construction crew decided to probe with a steel braze before making a decision.

Film and television stills

However, at the moment when the steel braze was pulled out of the white plaster mud, with a "snort", a gas with a peculiar smell spewed out of the hole. When this gas met the cigarette butts in the mouths of the migrant workers at the mouth of the cave, a "bang" ignited a blue flame, and the hospital director who heard the news could not avoid it, his eyebrows were all burned, and his face was also burned with blisters.

In this way, the ghost fire has been burning for three days and three nights, and for a time it has caused panic among the people, and as the news spread, all kinds of speculation have spread extremely evilly.

Fire Cave Tomb

Just when everyone didn't know what to do, a farmer came in and took a look and told everyone that there was an ancient tomb underneath. When the warrior asked why, he said that my ancestors had done this, and it turned out that this was a descendant of a Changsha dialect called "Tufuzi". The leaders of the hospital knew the mysterious skills of these people, and as soon as they heard about it, they quickly reported the situation to the Hunan Provincial Museum.

A few days later, archaeologists arrived at the scene, and the origin of the incident gradually became clear. After on-site exploration by experts, it was preliminarily determined that the underground excavated was indeed an ancient tomb, and it was a fire pit tomb. The so-called fire pit tomb, also known as the "fire cave tomb", is the biogas produced by the corrosion of organic matter in the tomb, because the tomb is very well sealed and gathered in the tomb. On contact with a flame, combustion occurs.

All the burial items belonging to this kind of fire cave tomb, even the body will be quite well preserved.

Ma Wang Heap painting

At the end of 1971, relevant archaeologists submitted reports and applications to the State Council. At the beginning of 1972, the archaeologists carried out scientific excavations of the mysterious tombs, and unearthed a large number of precious burial items, including plain gauze shirts, T-shaped paintings, etc., which caused a particularly huge sensation in that year.

Among them, the most sensational is the body of the tomb owner, which can be said to be one of the most important cultural relics in China so far. The first reason for saying that she is a cultural relic is that she has preserved a large amount of cultural information. The second reason is that she has demonstrated the scientific and technological achievements of preserving the remains in ancient times. So who is this corpse? Later, after the archaeologists confirmed, this corpse was Xin Chai, the wife of The Minister of Changsha.

It is said that after Liu Bang established the Western Han Dynasty, in order to stabilize the world, he divided a total of seven kings with different surnames. Later, these foreign kings threatened the state with several circles of notice, and Liu Bang decided to get rid of them. Liu Bang sent Li Cang to changsha to serve as chancellor and monitor Wu Rui, the king of Changsha. Soon after Li Cang arrived, he encountered a rebellion by the neighboring King Yingbu of Huainan. Li Cang persuaded Wu Rui, the king of Changsha, to send someone to booby trap and kill Yingbu, making a great contribution to the Han Dynasty. And Xin Chai, as his wife, naturally enjoyed countless glory and wealth, and was still buried after death.

The corpse of a thousand-year-old woman is seen again

On April 29, 1972, Xin Chai's body was removed from the coffin by archaeologists. It is said that when the female corpse revealed her true face, her appearance was complete, her face was alive, her face was clear and recognizable, and her skin was soft and smooth, pale yellow, and it looked as if she had just died.

I will not put the front photo, interested in my own search

But please forgive me for my understanding of the word "face-like". Because no matter how you look at this corpse, it doesn't look like it is lifelike.

But miraculously, the muscles and skin of the corpse remain elastic when they emerge, the limbs and joints can still bend freely, the internal organs are well preserved, and the vasculature of the corpse will bulge and spread after being injected with alcohol and formalin. Almost indistinguishable from modern injections. After anatomical and pathological examination, the female corpse suffered from a variety of diseases before her death. For example, coronary heart disease, atherosclerosis, multiple cholelithiasis. Whipworm eggs, pinworm eggs, schistosomiasis eggs were also found in her rectum and liver, and one hundred and thirty-eight melon seeds were also found in her esophagus and gastrointestinal tract.

According to the illness, the cause of her death may have been due to the death of a coronary heart attack caused by biliary colic after eating too many melons, and died at the age of about fifty.

We all know that the ancients believed that only the body was immortal, and the soul could live forever. In nature, everything follows the law of birth and death, and it is a miracle that this immortal female corpse can withstand the normal process of corruption. And Mrs. Xin Chai is also the world's first time to find a long-standing wet corpse, after the excavation shocked the world, since then found similar ancient corpses were classified by the archaeological community as the Mawang pile corpse type.

Unexplained reasons

After the excavation of Xin Chai's body, the media rushed to report that the reason for the mysterious incorruptibility of the thousand-year-old corpse also caused huge speculation and controversy among the people.

There are generally the following statements:

The first theory is that the coffin containing Xin Chai's body was soaked with a colorless liquid that turned brownish yellow shortly after it was unearthed. After analysis, the relevant scientific and technological personnel found that its composition is extremely complex, which contains cinnabar, arsenic, mercury and many traditional Chinese medicine ingredients. Some people believe that this coffin liquid has played a good protective role in the decay of the corpse, which is the fundamental reason why the ancient corpse can be preserved.

The second theory is that the root cause of the preservation of ancient corpses is the special environment in which the corpses are stored. The reason why Xin Chai's body can be preserved intact is entirely due to the well-sealed coffin, precisely because the coffin is well sealed and completely isolated from the outside air, avoiding the erosion of the body by bacteria.

The third theory holds that the preservation of Xin Chai's body is an objective and coincidental accidental result. White plaster mud and charcoal have a good protective effect on the coffin. The deep burial of the coffin created a good constant temperature and humidity environment, which provided a possibility for the preservation of the body. On the other hand, the body was poured with wine and the clothes were embalmed. The deceased had taken cinnabar before his death, and the mysterious coffin liquid of unknown origin and the large number of spices in the coffin had a strong bactericidal ability. In short, the preservation of thousands of years of ancient corpses is a coincidence with a very low probability.

The last argument is refreshing, they believe that the preservation of Xin Chai's body is related to the unique Chinese culture. During the inspection, experts found that although Mrs. Xin Chai lost her husband after the death of her husband, she still lived a life of poverty and luxury, and was vigorously followed by high-ranking officials and nobles. This can be corroborated by two artifacts unearthed, the first of which is a tanuki-pattern lacquer plate, which is a food plate. In the gap between the clouds in the plate, the Zhushu "Junxing Food", another cultural relic is the cloud-patterned lacquer ear cup, and at the bottom of the cup, the Zhushu "Junxing Wine", these two sentences are translated into today's vernacular, which means to eat well and drink well. This also shows the grandeur of Mrs. Xin Chai's doorman at that time.

The main reason why Mrs. Xin Chai still maintained great influence and attraction after the death of her husband seems to be the answer from the Taoist health chart on the tomb wall and the "Tao Te Ching" pictured in the tomb. Mrs. Xin Chai was probably a researcher of Taoist health methods and achieved great success. Therefore, the main reason why Xin Chai's corpse was not decomposing was probably the result of her cultivation before she died, which could not be explained by modern science.

Taoist treasure trove

After the excavation of Xin Chai's body, the media rushed to report it, because the influence was too large, it was easy to ignore other precious cultural relics that were also unearthed in Mawangdui. For example, the magical plain gauze shirt. The two garments weighed forty-eight grams, one weighed forty-nine grams, almost less than one or two. It represents the highest level of silkworm reeling process in the Western Han Dynasty. Unfortunately, this process has been lost and cannot be imitated to this day.

Another example is xin chai's T-shaped painting covering the inner coffin. Another example is the twenty-eight ancient books excavated in Tomb No. 3, including Lao Tzu, Zhou Yi, Taiping Qing Lingshu, Fifty-two Sick Prescriptions, Warring States Zhonghengjia Book, and the long-lost "Four Books of the Yellow Emperor" and other ancient classics written by the mainland.

Except for the two heirlooms of Zhou Yi and Lao Tzu, most of these books are long-lost ancient books. And the most worth mentioning of this is "Astronomical Astrology".

The Astronomical Astrology is 144 lines long, recording the position and orbit of the five stars of water, wood, metal, fire and earth in the sky from the first year of Qin Shi Huang to the three years of Emperor Wen of Han, and the cycle of rotation around the sun. Amazingly, these accounts are not much different from the scientific basis derived from modern astronomy. One has to admire the ancient Taoists' superb level and knowledge of astronomical astrology.

It can be said that the entire Mawangdui Han Tomb is a treasure trove of Taoist classics.

Neglected bayberry and lotus tablets

In addition to the above-mentioned precious cultural relics, Mawangdui Ham has also unearthed many cooking techniques and materials, including the earliest batch of bamboo menus so far, which record 103 valuable dishes and 9 cooking methods such as stewing, stewing, simmering, roasting, etc., which can be called the originator of today's Hunan cuisine and its cooking technology.

In addition, many well-preserved fruits and vegetables have been unearthed in the tomb, such as in the clay pot No. 133, people were surprised to find that the bright arbutus filled with purple red was as fresh as if it had just been plucked from the tree, but in the process of moving, due to the air and light, the bright arbutus quickly turned into black carbon dust. For example, in the cloud paint ding numbered 100, archaeologists saw that there were more than a dozen white lotus pieces floating in the water, but when the staff moved the cloud paint outside the tomb, with the shaking and light of the water, all the lotus pieces magically disappeared.

Fortunately, the staff at that time pressed the shutter of the camera in their hands in time before the lotus tablets disappeared, which allowed us to witness this widely circulated and precious photo.

postscript:

Taoists pay attention to "going with the flow", and as we said earlier, if we judge mrs. Xin Chai's admiration for Taoist secret arts based on these unearthed Taoist classics, it is naturally not without basis. Then, according to other cultural relics, in that era of advocating the Huang Lao doctrine, it naturally made sense that Mrs. Xin Chai had a large number of disciples after the death of her husband, relying on her status as a Taoist health expert. The unearthing of countless menus shows that Mrs. Xin Chai not only pays attention to health, but also prefers food, which is also an indisputable fact.

So can we infer that Mrs. Xin Chai, relying on her status as a monk, ate a large amount of melons and eventually died after a fight with the disciples. After her death, because of the Taoist occult arts, the corpse was immortal. However, this violated the Taoist principle of "Taoist nature", so two thousand years later, it was dug up from the tomb by the fanatical revolutionary fighters and put in the museum for people to enjoy.

If this is the case, I don't know how Mrs. Xin Chai knows about the underground and how to feel.

Perhaps it is true that the saying "where blessings and misfortunes lie, misfortunes and blessings depend."

Dear readers, what do you think?

Resources:

Yunnan Publishing Group: Chinese Archaeological Dictionary

Ming Huafeng and Chen Hui: "A Thousand Years of Immortality: The Tomb of Mawangdui Han"