The Marquise of Tai mummy: the best-preserved corpse in history
In 1973 a mummy was discovered in China. Although common thought leads to consider the mummification of bodies as a completely Egyptian peculiarity, let us remember that mummification was known to ancient peoples such as the Maya and Aztecs; moreover, all these peoples were united by the tradition, in my opinion common, that, with mummification, the bodies could be preserved for the future, when the important mummified personalities could revive and ascend to the heavens together with the deities who came from heaven... and that they would return from heaven.
This, however, is a very particular mummy. In China, in A-Wang-Tui, precisely in the Onan region was found a gigantic mound over 20 meters deep and 50 meters in diameter. The construction was completely made of coal with a clay lining, clearly indicating that the builder's did not want the tomb to be damaged by tomb robbers or humidity. Inside the mound, a woman aged approximately 52 years was found in a triple coffin, immersed in a red liquid; the woman was identified as the Marquise of Tai from the historical period 193-141 B.C.
One of the first things that caught the discoverer's eyes was that the woman seemed to have died recently, so good was her state of preservation, her body even swelled as if she were alive, following an injection of a preservative substance which it would have been used to perform the autopsy.
She was buried in an elaborate tomb, about 40 feet underground. The body was placed inside the smallest of four pine box coffins, each resting within the one larger.
To aid in removing oxygen, before the last block was placed in her inner burial box, pieces of wood were shoved into the area and lit on fire, then the last block was put in place. The fire would burn until the oxygen was gone. They did this two more times for each bigger box.
Many objects were found inside the tomb. The grave goods were very valuable and consisted of bowls, cases, make-up boxes, cosmetics and even jugs still containing food, fruits, rice cakes, aromatic herbs and fish; various musical instruments and objects of various types were also found inside.
A piece of fabric caught our attention: a silk weighing a few grams measuring 45 cm by 49 cm.
Furthermore, a tunic was found that wrapped the mummy, weighing 48 grams and 129 centimeters long. The results from the examination of this fabric are almost surprising: it is a fabric similar to nylon chiffon, which requires chemical processing, like nylon. Note: the synthetic fiber was discovered only after decades of study by the American Carothers in 1938.
The scientific results carried out in China do not pose any doubt, but doubts arise when we begin to ask ourselves the question: "How could it be possible that chemical synthesis for the production of fabrics was possible in China?", unfortunately this question for now it may not have any answer, but it certainly makes us understand how the development of science and history is not as the books have taught us...
