Why does the ancient corpse not rot for thousands of years?

Since the 1980s, incorruptible ancient corpses from various historical periods have been continuously discovered in various parts of our country. The Loulan girl discovered in Xinjiang has blond hair and blue eyes, lifelike; the soft corpse discovered in Guangxi has a fragrant fragrance immediately after opening the coffin; the ancient corpses of the Han Dynasty in Hunan and Hubei have flexible bodies and can be sat on; the Khitan noblewoman discovered in Inner Mongolia sleeps naturally and beautifully dignified.

The mystery of the immortality of ancient corpses has attracted the attention of Chinese and foreign scholars for centuries, and the mystery continues to tug at the heartstrings of many experts.

Why don’t ancient corpses rot? Are there some scientific methods used by different nations and countries? Now, let us take a look at the discovery of ancient corpses around the world.

Based on the excavations of the former Soviet Union in the Bazelek Ancient Tomb in the Altai Mountains in the 1980s. The Altai Mongols in the fourth and fifth centuries BC also had the custom of mummifying the bodies of important dead figures. After the early nomads took out the internal organs from the corpse of the leader, they used thick horsehair ropes to sew the incisions on the skin, and even Open a large opening on the top of the head and take out the brain from the skull. After removing the most perishable parts such as the internal organs and brain, the body was buried in a huge cairn. The tomb is made of dry stones, so its thermal conductivity is very low, that is, it does not absorb much heat from the outside and does not transmit much heat. However, the cold air in winter easily invades the interior, making the tomb as deep as 7 meters. The soil was frozen, and a small layer of permafrost formed under each cairn. The wooden coffins were buried under this layer of frozen soil. Occasionally, water poured into the tomb and froze into ice, and the burial objects of the corpse were frozen by the ice that did not melt all year round. The mummies unearthed in this way even retain their shiny skin, which is close to the skin color of ordinary people. Some people still have clear tattoo patterns on their bodies, with exquisite patterns such as eagles, tigers, sheep, and mythical beasts.

The Thousand-Year-Old Corpses of Mawangdui were exhibited at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen in 1979. Some well-preserved corpses from the early Iron Age were exhibited, as well as the full sets of clothing worn by these people. These ancient corpses were excavated from a peat bog in the Torronde Valley in central Jutland in the 1950s. According to records, the first ancient corpse was unearthed in 1640. However, when another intact corpse of an ancient Tolonde man was found in a swamp in the 1950s, the local Danish police thought they had encountered a recent incident. Homicide. This is because the corpse looks like it has just been dead. It has a short beard on its cheeks, a hat on its head, and is completely naked, as if it has just been buried in a peat bog after being hanged. in appearance. Scientific analysis shows that the water in this peat swamp has high acid and iron content, which may be a natural condition for the ancient corpse to fail to decay and become a kind of "tanned corpse". Tanned corpses are "soft corpses" with flexible skin and movable joints, unlike the "mummy corpses" unearthed in Xinjiang, my country. The peat soil seals the tanning very well.

In the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada, there is a beautifully crafted mummy, which is made of a primitive fiberglass-like thing, consisting of fine linen soaked in adhesive wrapped around a hollow It was formed on a wooden mold, and inside the wooden mold was the well-preserved remains of an ancient Egyptian woman.

The museum used the latest whole-body tomography X-ray at Toronto Children's Hospital to check whether the mummy with a beautiful shell had any signs of decay and to see what other funerary objects were inside the shell. Fluoroscopic scan. During the layered continuous photography, a lot of data was also measured by computer. Based on the structure of the fibrous tissue and bones shown in the scan, it is inferred that the mummy was a strong girl of about 20 years old. It has existed for 2,700 years and still has no signs of decay. An incision was found on the left side of her abdomen, covered with a rectangular sheet. When making a mummy, the internal organs (excluding the heart) were taken out from this incision, and then put back into the body cavity and bandaged after being smeared with spices. The metal sheet (or wax sheet) covering the incision is also painted with a pattern. Above the heart and on the chest, there are protective gemstones. The shape and pattern are very similar to the amulets of King Tudankamen, the 18th Dynasty pharaoh of Egypt in 1355 BC.

The excavation of Han Tomb No. 1 at Mawangdui in Changsha, Hunan, my country, is a very amazing discovery in the field of Chinese archaeology and one of the major discoveries in the history of world archaeology. From the burial tools, grave goods to the body, they are all so well preserved that it is almost unbelievable. There are many reasons why ancient corpses from more than 2,000 years ago are so well preserved.

First of all, the most fundamental one is to build an airtight and watertight tomb several kilometers below the ground. The first condition that creates such a near-vacuum tomb is deep burial. This tomb is 16 meters deep, which is rare among ancient tombs in Changsha. It also has a large mound with a bottom diameter of 50 to 60 meters and a height of more than 20 meters. The second is that the body was buried in a six-story thick wooden coffin. ; The third is to fill the surroundings of the coffin with highly sticky and dense white plaster mud and highly hygroscopic charcoal. These clearly carefully studied procedures play an important role in reducing the impact on the ground, preventing rain and groundwater infiltration, and keeping out the air.

Secondly, special antiseptic drugs were placed in the coffin to kill bacteria that accompanied the corpse and funerary objects when they were buried. Regarding preservatives, it is recorded in my country's oldest medicine book "Shen Nong's Materia Medica". Some famous medical scientists appeared during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.

The large amount of red liquid in the coffin of the Mawangdui Han Tomb undoubtedly contains antiseptic drugs. This complex scientific issue requires in-depth research by relevant departments.

Finally, after the tomb is sealed, not only the damage caused by external light, temperature, humidity, etc. to the burial furniture, funerary objects, and corpses is completely eliminated. Moreover, a constant temperature and relatively stable humidity were formed in the tomb chamber. Biogas is produced due to the action of certain bacteria brought in at the beginning, thus generating a considerable amount of atmospheric pressure exceeding that of the outside world. Before the official start of construction, the excavators used a shovel to drill a hole and sprayed out a strong flow of biogas. This saturated biogas in turn played a role in sterilization and antisepsis. We know that inflated cans are used to increase the air pressure inside so that bacteria cannot survive after the food is packed.

For the above reasons, and perhaps other reasons, this noble lady spent more than 2,000 years intact in the sterile basement.

Some people may ask: Since the working people and scientists in ancient times have mastered the method of preserving corpses, why can't we understand all the mysteries today? Is it not possible for modern science to analyze and explain phenomena that occurred thousands of years ago?

Yes, modern science cannot fully explain many phenomena in ancient times, but this does not mean that today’s science and technology are not as good as in the past, but that modern science and technology have not yet developed enough to explain everything that happened in the past. high level. What's more, ancient ruins have gone through tremendous changes, and most of the phenomena displayed before our eyes are no longer the specific realities of the time. We can analyze the medicines in the Mawangdui woman’s coffin to see how many chemical elements it contains, but we cannot tell what kind of Chinese herbal medicine it contains. There is no end to scientific research, so we say that the mystery of the immortality of ancient corpses will be difficult to obtain a comprehensive scientific explanation for a long time.