Lady Dai (Xin Dai) By Jacqueline Muir
About Lady Dai
People thought that Egyptians only believed in the after life and to preserve them until they go to the under world with the gods. Well they didn't turn out like how they thought they would. But on 1971, near the time of war, Chinese men were making a bomb shelter near a field near the city of Changsha, they found a Han Dynasty era tomb and discovered a body that looked like it was a recent death. It was female and named Lady Dai, the wife of Li Cang, the Marquis of Dai during the Han Dynasty. Instead they called her "THE DIVER MUMMY." She died in her 50's and that was 2,100 years ago when she died!
The death of Lady Dai (don't like gruesome, please skip)🤢
During a party, Lady Dai started to feel sharp pains after she ate a melon barely before an hour. The sharp pains were the gall stones in the gall bladder. One of the gall stones got stuck in her bilduked artery which caused tragic pain and making her heart beat super fast and stopping very quickly making her weak and fall dead 💀.
What was buried with her?
Food and Medicine:
- Textiles
- A bronze mirror and 39 peachwood figures were placed directly in the coffin; all the other grave goods were around the coffin In 4 side compartments
- The Northern compartment was laid out in a inner chamber with curtains, a bamboo mat, eating and drinking vessels, and wooden servant figurines.
- The Western compartment housed cosmetic articles, mostly lacquered wooden objects and furniture.
- The Eastern compartment contained fugurines clothed as dancers, musicians, and attendants. 48 bamboo storage baskets were found intact. These plaited and lidded containers were tied up with hemp cords; some had clayed seals and a wooden label indicating their contents or a person in charge (e.g., Lady Dai.) 6 contained garments and silk fabrics, 30 held food stuffs, 3 held herbal medicines and 4 held coins and elephant teeth.
- All of the food and medicine have been identified. Agricultural products like rice, wheat, oats, millet, soybeans, red lentils, hemp seeds, plums, pears, arbutes, jujube, mustard greens, ginger and lotus root were placed in bamboo cases or hemp sacks.
- Moreover, the discovery of animal bones belonging to ox, sheep, pig, deer, dog, hare, crane, wild goose, duck, pheasant, chicken, sparrow and carp showed the variety of meat products used for food in the Han Dynasty.
Her tomb and her preservation
The making of the preservation
After a person died, the body was first washed in a fragrant spirit (called chang), then wrapped in cloths and garments. Before the burial ceremony, the corpse was laid on a wooden plank and placed on cold water. It was then laid in the innermost coffin of several boxes and acid liquid poured in. This liquid stopped the growth of enzymes and funtioned as a mild antiseptic. When chinese archeologists first opened Lady Dai's innermost coffin, they found the corpse lying in a red liquid at a depth of 20-30cm. No exact analysis of liquid has been possible to date. Now the tomb is currently located at Mawangdui in Changsha.
Tomb
In Lady Dai's tomb, four coffins were perfectly nested, so little air remained within her resting chamber. The rest of the oxygen was consumed immediately after closure by the oxidation of the organic material. The famous T-shaped banner showing the heavenly realm of the deceased lady, during the funeral procession, covered the innermost coffin.
This is interesting to watch. Go and watch it!
Interesting facts about Lady Dai + why she is important!
Fun facts! (I'll repeat some things, though it's still a fact!)
- Her eyes had fallen out from her sockets but her eyelids and eyelashes were still intact
- She was from a royal family and had lots of parties
- She was the earliest and first couch potato in HISTORY!
- She had heaps of worms and diseases inside her, mostly to the spinal cord from her neck to her bottom.
- She still had fresh blood stuck in her veins
Why is Xin Zhui Important?
She is important because it shows that acient china beleived the same way as acient egypt about the whole after life. This shows that anciet chinese in the past years used different ways to preserve the royal to still look beautiful when they frist died and to still be like that when the "after life" arrives to get them.
Why is History important?
But we all know that acient china had more previous mistakes from the past years. E.g., an emporer died and wanted his body to be inside jade armour with gold threaded to hold the jade pecies together. But when people discovered him and opened it up, there was nothing but ashes and 2 bones that were small enough to fit on a childs palm.
She is amazing that she was able to stay like that for 2,100 years and look like a recent loss to china, to the world, to us she is what most people will think as an illusion in their mind and that there could be no such thing but there is. She was lying down in the ground waiting to be in god's presence and be in the after life but instead with us and experience that we learn about history and find sereats that were meant to come at the right times in different years so we get better in furture and be who we become and solve what was never been able to become solved.