The
well-preserved mummy of a woman in a coffin was uncovered at a highway construction site in Lianyungang in eastern Jiangsu Province on July 8,
2002.
"Suddenly my digger's
claw touched something hard, but at first I thought it was stone,"
Jiang Maodong, a construction worker, told reporters. When he discovered
that the machine had struck a wooden coffin Jiang thought he and his
machine had come across a relatively recent burial site. But when he saw
the coffin, he realized that he had found an ancient tomb and he contacted
authorities.
In all, Jiang discovered
four coffins, including the one that the digger had damaged. At first,
authorities ignored the damaged coffin and explored the contents of the
other three. The artifacts they found suggested that the coffins were from
the West Han dynasty (206 BC - AD 24).
When the authorities
finally examined the damaged coffin, they were shocked to find a
well-preserved female corpse floating in liquid. Also from the West Han
dynasty, the woman died 2,000 years ago. Hers is the third Han Dynasty mummy to be discovered.
[The other two
were found at the Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha (1971; this mummy is
quite famous and is known as the Marquise of Tai or sometimes Lady Dai)
and at the Jingzhou Han Tomb in Hubei Province.]
The woman was found in a
coffin along with a lacquer box, a food container made of bamboo, a toilet
set (consisting of a comb and a
copper mirror), a lock of hair, and a handwritten list of burial articles.
A bronze seal also placed in the coffin (a sign that the woman's family
was important) identified the woman as Huiping Ling.
Her body was floating in an alkalescent fluid and was well-preserved
though discolored. Muscle tissues were still elastic. But some decay was
visible on her face, abdomen, and toes. This may have happened if the
liquid found in he casket was used to preserve the body and, over time, did not cover
the body
adequately. A reporter observed that the lower part of her left leg was
thinner than the right leg. Researchers will determine if this was a sign
of an illness that took her life.
On the other hand, the
corpse preservation specialist studying the mummy does not believe that
the fluid was a preservative. It was found to have a pH of 7.55, which
counters the current belief that only an acidic fluid could preserve
corpses (by preventing the growth of bacteria). Unlike the Marquise of Tai,
whose well-preserved body was
was placed in an acidic solution, the cause of this mummy's preservation
is a mystery right now.
The mummy has been sent to
the Lianyungang Museum for study. Officials hope to determine details of
her life and a more precise date of death. They also plan to analyze the
liquid in the coffin more thoroughly. Preliminary tests indicate that it
has a density of 1.01 and contains hemoglobin.
For the moment, she has
been re-preserved in formalin and covered with a layer of cotton.
