Beautifully preserved mummy
In 1971, workers in China’s Hunan Province unearthed one of the world’s most amazing archeological sites. The area contained three elaborate tombs. One belonged to a well-to-do civil servant named Li Kang, who held the illustrious title of Marquis of Dai. The other two tombs contained his wife, Lady Dai, and their son.
The family lived during China’s Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE). Lady Dai passed away around 163 BCE, more than 2,000 years ago, but her near-perfectly preserved corpse, and the family’s funerary items, have helped historians piece together important information about life in ancient China. The remarkable archeological find was discovered during what was expected to be an uneventful project. Laborers in the city of Changsha were digging a hole for an air-raid shelter in the side of Mawangdui Hill, a spot that meant nothing to locals.
Workers were in for a shock when they decided to take a smoke break and their matches suddenly lit up from a blast of cool air emanating from deep inside the hill. Scientists were called in to investigate what locals were calling gui huo (“ghost fire”). That’s when they happened upon the Dai family’s remains.
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