Jade suits were initial documented in literature around AD 320, though there is archaeological proof of their existence over 0.5 a millennium before. However, their existence wasn’t confirmed until 1968, when the tomb of Prince Liu Sheng and his wife Princess Dou Wan of the Han Dynasty was discovered. Believed to be one in each of the foremost important archaeological finds of the 20 th century, the undisturbed tomb was unearthed among the Hebei Province behind a wall of iron between two brick walls and a corridor packed with stone.
Each of the inexperienced suits consists of over 2,000 plates of jade, with gold used to sew the prince’s and silver for the princess. There are fewer than two dozen totally different suits found since their discovery, partly as a results of they were therefore expensive and labor intensive create even the foremost skilled jadesmith would have taken over 10 years to create one in each of the suits. Additionally in AD 223, Emperor Wen of Wei ordered that the assembly of jade suits be stopped, as they impressed tomb looters who would burn the suits to retrieve the gold thread.
Jade was believed to have preservative and protecting qualities that will stop the deterioration of sentimental tissues and keep away dangerous spirits. Nevertheless beneath the stone suits there are solely crumbled skeletons. Nevertheless, since jade is porous, it’s doable that DNA from the royal couple would be embedded among the stones over two,000 years when their deaths, giving them a kind of immortality. The 2 jade suits are currently on show within the Hebei Provincial Museum.
