Advertisement

The Jade Burial Suits Discovered In China

Nearly 2 millennia ago in Ancient China, during the Han period, jade burial suits were completely hand-crafted for the ceremonial burial of royalty and aristocrats.
Previously, long before the Han Dynasty, the people in mainland China had been able to develop such interest with the mineral mined early as 6000 BC, during the New Stone Age.

Source: Shutterstock

The Chinese used to carve nephrite jade into small objects of personal adornment, including small discs suspending on necklaces, representing political authority and religious power, or into ritualistic utensils involving axes, knives and chisels.
Jade easily became correlated with Chinese conceptions of the soul, protective qualities and immortality in the ‘essence’ of stone, thanks to its firmness, resilience and delicately translucent colors.

Source: Shutterstock

Together with the reign of the Han Dynasty, the second imperial dynasty of China from 202 BC, the connection with jade’s perpetuity is clear from documental records by Sima Qian (145-86 BC), a Chinese historian, about emperor Wu of Han (157-87 BC).
In the documents, he described the Emperor as having a jade cup carved with the lines “Long Life to the Lord of Men”, who allowed himself to enjoy the pleasure of jade powder mixed with sweet dew.

Source: Wikimedia Uploads

Emperors of the Han Dynasty were all convinced that jade would also conserve their bodies and the linked spirits in the afterlife, and got embalmed entirely within a jade burial suits consisting of thousands of pieces of cut and polished jade stitched together using threads.
The kind of thread used would be determined by the buried’s social status, according to the Book of the Later Han (Hòu Hànshū).
Gold would be used to thread the jade suit of an emperor, while silver would be applied to lessor royals and high-ranked nobility, copper for the sons and daughters of the lessor, and lowly ranked aristocrats are linked with silk.

Source: Shutterstock

Only after the finding of two complete jade costumes in the graves of Prince Liu Sheng and his wife Princess Douwan in Mancheng, Hebei in 1968 were scientists able to confirm the truth about the existence of jade suit burials, previously doubted as completely tales decorated within history.
Over 20 jade burial suits have since been excavated, leading to archaeologists believing that the burial practice ceased near the end of the Hand dynasty, in fear of grave raiders that would pillage the tombs to find treasures and precious gold and silver threads.
Share this article
Advertisement
 
Advertisement