Mawangdui Han Tombs
Mawangdui · Marquis of Dai tombs · Mawangdui Lady Dai
Western Han Early 202–141 BCE·Han dynasty (Changsha Kingdom)·🇨🇳 Hunan Province, Changsha City, Furong District, No.89 Guhan Road beside Liuyang River eastern suburb, China
About
About Mawangdui Han Tombs
Family cemetery of Marquess of Dai (Li Cang, Prime Minister of Changsha Kingdom, Western Han, 202 BCE–9 CE) with three rectangular shaft tombs (168–145 BCE). Tomb 1 yielded Lady Dai (Xin Zhui) natural mummy preserved 2100 years with pliable joints, blood in vessels and intact organ tissue — world's best-preserved wet mummy — inside quadruple nested lacquer coffins with 1000 silk manuscripts including Daodejing version and T-shaped silk funeral banner.
Why it mattersMost informative Han daily life assemblage: menu, medical texts, silk banner cosmology, Daodejing textual variant rewrote Han intellectual history.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Preservation chemistry — mercury, charcoal/kaolin seal, or bacteria inhibition?
Theories
- 01Han aristocratic health model; lacquer production centralized Changsha workshop
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- 168–145 BCE (Tombs 1–3 Western Han)
- Period
- Western Han Early 202–141 BCE
- Culture
- Han dynasty (Changsha Kingdom)
- Builders
- Han nobility / lacquer artisans
- Purpose
- Aristocratic family cemetery with layered cosmological burial
- Abandoned
- sealed 145 BCE
- Rediscovered
- 1971 PLA tunnel find; excavated 1972–74 by Hunan Museum
- Excavation
- Excavated
168 BCE
Tomb 1 Lady Dai interred with quadruple coffin and banner
1972–74
Hunan Museum rescue excavation; mummy and silks conserved
On the ground
Structures & features
28.2090° N · 113.0280° E · 50 m · 1 mapped feature
Tomb 1 shaft and nested coffins (Lady Dai)
shaft tomb20 m shaft with 4 lacquer coffins and T-banner
28.2092° N · 113.0282° E
Gallery