2000 Year-Old Mummy of Lady Dai

The Diva Mummy

2000 years ago, the brutal time of war became a splendid time of wealth. Somewhere wars were fought, many died, and on the other hand, many were filling their vaults from it. Lords and ladies lived in luxury and wanted to go on forever, some did!!

Current day China is one of the oldest civilizations and a modern economic juggernaut. Still, one question arose, how did the people who died 2000 years ago become the best-preserved ancient bodies ever found? They thought immortality could be taken if only they could get the formulas right.

Dead Body Found!!!

Tomb of Lady Dai

It’s still 1972, China is not yet the economic powerhouse, it’s the time of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. At that time officials of the city Changsha, Ma Wang Dwi, announces the astonishing archeological discoveries ever made in china.

Bulldozers churn soil to build up the future but also uncover the past. The tomb was found under ancient soil. What was in the coffins amazed everyone. A body reported unlike any other ancient body ever found. This is something you never ever find in Egypt. Ancient China's masters of death and of mummy so lifelike, they leave the Egyptians in the dust.

Premier Joe (one of the most powerful people in China at that time) told scientists not to touch ancient treasures unless they were absolutely sure they wouldn't destroy them. China's most eminent pathologists decline to autopsy the body found at Ma Wang Dwi. Junior Scientist named Pong Long Shong put up his hand.

Her flesh was still soft and elastic, her skin was the same light yellow color it had been when she was alive. She still had her hair and a wig she wore to the grave. When the autopsy team cut open her skull their amazement deepened, her brain was only half its normal size but completely intact. Then professor Pong made his first incision into the chest and found all her internal organs still in place and looking nearly as good as new. The team removed her stomach, ovaries and other organs, incredibly, there was still red blood in her veins.

The 2000-year-old mummy found at Ma Wang Dwi

Decades after her Modern debut the mummy from Ma Wong Dui still dazzles and puzzles the world's top forensic anthropologists like John Verano of Tulane University. He says that the body looks like living people, the body moves like living people. When you look at their intestines and other internal organs, they're about as close as you get to a well-preserved fresh body today. As per him what makes this mummy apart from any other mummy is the flexibility of her limbs. You never see that in an ancient body and you don’t even try to do that in the fear of breaking the limbs.

But even before Pong Long Jung began to cut, archeologists already knew that the lady from Ma Wang Dwi was no ordinary mummy. Who was the woman many have called the world's perfect mummy?

Xin Zhui

Lady Dai

Her name was almost certainly Xin Zhui, she had died about 160 years before the birth of Christ and she'd always been a star, Archeologist Charles Hyam knows her well.

Xin Zhui was an aristocrat, she was a major member of a ruling family and she led a life of considerable ease of luxury. 2000 years ago she was the wife of a powerful lord named the Marcus of Dai and Chancellor of Changsha Kingdom, during the Western Han dynasty of ancient China.

Her modern home, the Hunan Provincial Museum, displays a lifestyle reconstruction of her. A beautiful elegant woman stares at us but professor Pong's autopsy suggests a very different look. The lady's body has shrunk quite a bit, there are wrinkles on the skin tell us she was quite fat when she was alive.

Treasures found in her Tomb

The Lady of Dai's love affair with her dinner seemed confirmed by the treasures found in her tomb. More than 1000 artifacts were found of which 2/3 of them connects with food and drink. 30 sealed bamboo baskets held everything from pears plums and soybeans to the bones of pigs, ox, dogs, and some 10 other animals.

Tomb layout of Lady Dai

We know precisely what she liked to eat. Some of her favorite recipes were inscribed and placed in her grave. They found a complete skeleton of a swan, for example, sparrow's eggs, sliced lotus. All these items were clearly made readily available for her table. But the tomb contained much more than enough food for the afterlife.

Just because you were dead doesn't mean you stop dining in style.

Lady Dai planned to eat her eternal meals off exquisite Lacquer dinnerware. The largest set of ancient Chinese lacquer ever found.

Her Coffin was covered with a beautiful silk banner showing Xin Zhui making her journey to heaven. She was taking with her all her wine containers and representations of servants.

For Xin Zhui death was a dinner party that never ended. 

Painting of silk banner showing
Xin Zhui making her journey to heaven