The First Unearthed Horse Pattern Unearthed From The Tomb Of Wang Dui

The reporter learned from the Hunan Provincial Museum on the 24th that recently, the Hunan Provincial Museum carried out a systematic cleaning of the unfinished textiles unearthed from the Mawangdui Han tomb for the first time. The newly discovered Lingwen Qie unearthed from the Mawangdui Han tomb filled in the research gaps in related fields.

The Hunan Provincial Museum completed a systematic inventory of the cultural relics unearthed from the Mawangdui Han tomb on the 21st, numbering all the cultural relics not recorded in the warehouse in order, and clearing up more than 21000 pieces of collection. Among them, there are more than 19000 textiles and 1700 lacquer and wood ware warehouses.

Yu Yanjiao (right) is instructing the staff to clear and file the cultural relics unearthed from Mawangdui Han tomb. Pictures provided by Hunan Provincial Museum

Dong Mingming, deputy research librarian of Hunan Provincial Museum, who has been engaged in the protection, restoration and research of ancient textile relics for a long time, said that due to the large number of silk fabrics unearthed earlier, the fragments broken into pieces and the "Silk bricks" formed by adhesion of a large number of textiles have not been classified into accounts, and they are only kept as materials and cultural relics. This time, experts have filed the fragments with information, characteristics and significance.

"The purpose of clearing the storehouse is to better protect and preserve cultural relics." Yu Yanjiao, director of the Mawangdui Han tomb and collection research and Exhibition Center of Hunan Provincial Museum, said that characters were found in the fragments of Lingwen Qi during the Qing Dynasty. "This is the first time to discover that there are woven characters in the Lingwen Qi unearthed from the Han tomb in Mawangdui, which is a typical seal script, reflecting the superb textile weaving skills of the early Han Dynasty."

This is a yellow brown pair of birds unearthed from the Han tomb in Mawangdui. Pictures provided by Hunan Provincial Museum

In addition, experts found new patterns of silk fabrics in the Qing Dynasty, which enriched the understanding of tomb relics. Yu Yanjiao said that the dragon pattern was the only one in the longevity embroidery, but the phoenix pattern was found this time. Mawangdui phoenix pattern is the standard image of Phoenix in the early Han Dynasty. It inherits the style of Chu Phoenix and implies beauty, auspiciousness and longevity. It is consistent with the Han Dynasty's desire for immortality and immortality.

This is the silk "longevity embroidery" unearthed from the Han tomb at Mawangdui. Pictures provided by Hunan Provincial Museum

Experts from the Hunan Provincial Museum also made further research on the only feather decorated "feather Decal silk" unearthed in China during the process of clearing the storehouse. "It is recorded in ancient documents that the coffin ornaments were painted and painted. However, it is the only one found that feathers are used as coffin decorations." Dong said there may be three to four kinds of feathers from the shape analysis, but it is difficult to determine which animal the feathers belong to because of the strong carbonization.

This is a feather Decal silk unearthed from the Han tomb in Mawangdui. Pictures provided by Hunan Provincial Museum

There are more than 700 pieces of silk embroidery unearthed from the tomb of the Marquis of the Han Dynasty in Changsha from 1974 to the 20th century. Among them, the body of "Mrs. Xin Zhui" unearthed in tomb 1 is the longest preserved wet corpse found in the world.

(source: Xinhua)