Pictures: Lifelike "Wet Mummy" Found During Roadbuilding

Red-Glove Service

Photograph by Gu Xiangzhong, Xinhua/Corbis

Staff members from China's Taizhou Museum carefully raise the mummy—one of three found during a road expansion—from her wooden coffin on March 1.

The fully dressed, 5-foot-long (1.5-meter-long) body was buried with luxury items, including a jade ring, a silver hairpin, and more than 20 pieces of Ming-dynasty clothing.

The lack of identifying insignia such as a phoenix or dragon, though, suggests the wet mummy wasn't royal, said Timothy Brook, a historian at the University of British Columbia's Institute of Asian Research.

"Her headgear is sort of ordinary," Brook said. "There's nothing that sets her apart from anyone else. ... She was probably just a well-off person."

(See a picture of another well-preserved Chinese mummy.)

Published March 10, 2011

You Can't Take It With You?

Photograph by Gu Xiangzhong, Xinhua/Corbis

A worker from the Taizhou Museum cleans the Chinese wet mummy's large jade ring on March 3.

Jade was associated with longevity in ancient China. But in this case, the jade ring was "probably a sign of her wealth instead of a sign of any concern about the afterlife," Brook said.

(Related: "Korean Mummies Reveal Medical Clues, Love Poems.")

Published March 10, 2011

Good Hair Day

Photograph by Gu Xiangzhong, Xinhua/Corbis

A museum worker removes the female mummy's cap on March 3, revealing hair held in place by a still bright silver hairpin—a fairly standard example of the type worn by Ming-dynasty women, Brook said.

Neither Brook nor the University of Pennsylvania's Mair know why the wet mummy's head appears dyed purple beneath her cap, though Mair speculates it may have to do with natural minerals in the water.

The woman's age at death is unknown, but her unlined face suggests she was fairly young.

"She's certainly an adult," Brook said. "She's not an old woman."

(Also see "Pictures: Mummy Bundles, Child Sacrifices Found on Pyramid.")

Published March 10, 2011

Water Bed

Photograph from Barcroft/Fame Pictures

The newfound mummy rests on a plastic sheet after being removed from her flooded coffin on March 1.

In ancient China, it was believed that the newly dead would appear before supernatural judges.

"If you were found to be morally worthy," Brook explained, "you would be sent off for reincarnation—as a deity if you were fantastic, as a human being if you were good, as an animal if you were less good, and as a bug or a worm if you'd been really bad."

(Related: "Egypt Pictures: Roman-Style Mummy, Tombs Found.")

Published March 10, 2011

Watery Grave

Photograph by Gu Xiangzhong, Xinhua/Corbis

Submerged in the brownish liquid that likely preserved it, the Ming dynasty-era mummy lies in her wooden coffin prior to her removal on March 1.

The University of Pennsylvania's Mair thinks the liquid is oxygen-poor water that leaked into the coffin and not any type of special preservation fluid.

Published March 10, 2011

Highway to Heaven

Photograph by Jia Hongwei, Imaginechina/AP

On March 1 a crowd of Chinese archaeologists, reporters, and onlookers stand at the roadwork site where the Ming dynasty-era body was found.

During the Ming dynasty, preservation after death was thought to "reflect your purity" in life, Brook explained.

Had this woman's family known her body would be preserved for more than 600 years, they would have been extremely proud, he added.

Published March 10, 2011

Exorcism Coin

Photograph by Gu Xiangzhong, Xinhua/Corbis

A so-called exorcism coin adorns the chest of the newfound Chinese "wet mummy."

"My guess would be that the coin was placed on the body as a kind of charm against malevolent influences," Brook said.

Still unknown is whether the woman was buried with any written documents or inscribed pottery—a common practice in Ming-dynasty China.

"If you were a person of any importance, you had someone write a [remembrance] or a brief biography," Brook said, "and that biography would often be posted at the burial site and a copy buried with you as well, to identify who you are" in the afterlife.

Published March 10, 2011