The Beautiful Tau Banner of Lady Dai; Duchess of Ancient China

 

 Xin Zhui, (better known as the Lady Dai)

In 1971 some builders stopped for a smoke as they dug out an air raid shelter on a hill in Hunan, China. They were puzzled; as they dug deeper into the hill, the soil crumbled away as if it had  previously been disturbed. They lit their cigarettes and noticed that the matches burned with a deep blue flame. They might not have known that decomposition of human remains can release highly flammable gasses, but they left the site quickly, and reported their finding. 




The outside cavity holding the three coffins

When the archeologists arrived a few months later, they established that this was the resting place of a noble family of the Han dynasty. Two tombs, of the Marquis of Dai, who died in 186 BC,  and  a male relative, who may have been a son or brother, had been disrupted and robbed. But the final tomb, built circa 163 BC, for the Marquis's wife, Xin Zhui, (better known as the Lady Dai), was intact, and the archaeologists discovered  an opulent, spectacular and surprising interior. 



One of the three inner caskets

• The tombs were accessed via rectangular vertical shafts dug deep into the earth, a method originating from the bronze age. Lady Dai's funnel-like crypt contained more than 1,000 precious artefacts, including makeup, toiletries, lacquerware, and 162 carved wooden figures which represented her staff of servants. A meal was even laid out to be enjoyed by the 50 year-old duchess in the afterlife. In the central area lay three nesting coffins. Inside many layers of silk was the beautifully preserved mummy, wrapped in her finest robe, her skin still soft to the touch. The fact that she was quite corpulent, from her amazingly rich diet – scorpion soup was apparently a favourite – may have helped the quality of her ancient skin.

  

  An artefact found in the tomb

• The outermost coffin was a plain box. Inside were the three nesting coffins painted with  hugely expensive lacquer in black, red, and white. This protected from water damage and bacterial invasion. I cannot imagine how awed the archeologists must have been as they steadily revealed each coffin.
• But even more magnificent than all of this, was the banner that lay on top of the innermost of the coffins. This almost intact piece of beautifully painted silk would have been part of the procession of the Marquise  to her resting place. And on it were full and intricate instructions for her soul. The banner instructed Xin Zhui's spirit how to reach her paradise. 
• This T-shaped silk banner was over six feet long and in excellent condition for 2000-year-old fabric. It is a very early example of pictorial art in China.
• I first encountered this breathtaking story of life in Ancient China at a lecture given at Lampeter University, in West Wales. Fabric specialist had travelled from across the country to learn more about Lady Dai’s banner, its art and its messages. 
• The banner is divided into four horizontal sections. In the first, Lady Dai is pictured standing on a platform, leaning on a staff, wearing an embroidered silk robe. Framing the scene are white and pink sinuous dragons, their bodies looping through a 'bi' (a disc with a hole,  representing the sky). This section is remarkable in itself, as it is the earliest example of a painted portrait of a specific individual in China.
• In the section below this scene, sacrificial funerary rituals are portrayed in a mourning hall. Tripod containers and vase-shaped vessels for offering food and wine stand in the foreground. In the middle ground, seated mourners line up in two rows.
•  On a mound in the  between  two rows of mourners there are the patterns on the silk that match the robe Lady Dai wears in the scene above this.
• Lady Dai’s banner helps the modern world understand the religion she followed two millennia ago, and how artists began to represent depth and space in early Chinese painting. They made efforts to indicate depth through the use of the overlapping bodies of the mourners. They also made objects in the foreground larger, and objects in the background smaller, to create that illusion of space.
• Above and below the scenes of Lady Dai and the mourning hall, are images of heaven and the underworld. Toward the top, near the cross of the “T,” two men face each other and guard the gate to the heavenly realm. Directly above the two men, at the very top of the banner, is  a deity with a human head and a dragon body.
• Dragons and other immortal being look down from the sky to a toad standing on a crescent moon flanks the dragon/human deity and  what looks like a three-legged crow within a pink sun. The moon and the sun are emblematic of a supernatural realm above the human world. In the lower register, beneath the mourning hall,  the underworld is painted with a red snake, a pair of blue goats, and an earthly deity, holding up the floor of the mourning hall Two giant black fish cross to form a circle beneath him. The beings in the underworld symbolize water and earth, and they indicate an underground domain below the human world. 
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• While other mummies tend to crumble at the slightest movement, Dai is the most well-preserved ancient corpse yet to be discovered. Unlike most of the mummies found in ancient Egypt, her organs were all intact –  there was still blood in her veins—Type A. This allowed pathologists the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to perform an autopsy on the preserved body, 2,100 years after her death, ultimately giving us a firsthand glimpse at how the richest of the rich lived during the Han Dynast and is arguably the most complete medical profile ever compiled on an ancient individual.
• Thanks to her luxurious lifestyle, the Marquise had osteoporosis, arteriosclerosis, gallstones, liver disease, diabetes, and high cholesterol. She must have been in pretty constant pain from a fused spinal disc.
• Immediately after she was exposed to oxygen for the first time in 2,000 years, her body started to break down, which caused some of the visible decay apparent in the photograp of her mummy at the top of this blog.  Her body and belongings were taken into  the care of the Hunan Museum, where she now lies in state.
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Spring Stirs, and Bridget casts her mantel Wide

 During my winter rambles around the garden and through the lanes at this time of the year, I’m on the lookout for those very first “stars of the ground”; snowdrops. As the push through the dark, cold soil, they shine like fairy lights, bringing little glimmers of hope and expectation. As I walk, this comes to me;

IMBOLC 

White ribbons in the breeze,

Snowdrops beneath the trees

Bridget’s welcome we await

The land regenerates

The days spread out more light

The sun is higher and bright

Bridies youth and passion spark

The song of wren and lark.

The sap begins to rise

First shoots burst in surprise

And the maiden’s green adorns 

The land she will transform

New lambs are filled with glee

Catkins drape every tree

Early birds are chorusing

As Brige invokes the spring

Imbolc Imbolc!

The goddess spreads her mantle wide

Brigantia has returned. Nina Milton

It is a great idea to hold or attending, an Imbolc ceremony to celebrate the beginning of spring. This is a “hearth ritual”, usually held in the warmth of someone’s living space, but if it’s a nice day, it often feels good to be outdoors enjoying every little bit of sunshine. Either way, a ritual, even a tiny one, will lift the spirits quicker than anything. 

Bridget's Cross

1^st February, 10am, Jim  is  at our kitchen table making a Bridget's cross; twisting thin, springy reeds into the pattern of a complicated four-armed pattern.We are   preparing for the celebration of Bridget – Imbolc it’s called by the Irish, meaning the coming of  the ewe’s milk. In England it is known as Candlemas...festival of nineteen candles, of well-dressing, of mother and child. It is the gateway into spring and was first imagined in Celtic times, the Iron Age, when for early farmers the tilling and harvesting of the land was the hub to the wheel of their lives.  Imbolc spoke of growing light, growing warmth, of hope for the new year. It still does; the grass grows anew, the waters flow free and lambs are being born in Britain's fields. It’s the time of quickening, when in the womb of the Earth, spring stirs and grows green.

Bridget was a saint, but prior to that she was a Celtic goddess of the Irish Pantheon – daughter of the great Dahgda. She is both gentle maiden and Queen of the South, Lady of the forge, goddess of fire, the year’s midwife who births the sun. She is also the Lady of the Well and goddess of healing water. She is Lady of the Bards, goddess of poetry, song and inspiration and goddess of the hearth, so it stands to reason she would have many names; Bridghid, Bridie, Bride, as well ad Bridget. 

snowdrops

But that is what Imbolc is all about. The Iron Age Celts were as keen to see things warm up as we are. They called it the greening of the land – the spreading of Bridget's green mantle across the earth, and that is already happening, right now, beneath our feet. When we talk about spring in this way, we aren't talking about the weather. February is well known to prone to snow, ice, sleeting rain. But through the white layer over the earth, the snowdrops bloom. Imbolc is about seasons, not weather. The land is stirring, as it does every February. Buds are black on the ash trees. Spears of daffodils are shooting up through hard ground. The birds are establishing their territories.

The frosts are still biting, the cold still stings our faces as we gather. And darkness maintains its hold on our lives, even as the year moves steadily towards the vernal equinox. Darkness is our memory of winter, but is still our experience at Imbolc. The mornings begin before the night is ready to leave; the evening dusk falls quickly. Some of the company continued to welcome and work with darkness, even half regretting its slow decline. Some enjoyed darkness and light in equal measure. But most of us were impatient for the light to return – desperate for the warmth and sun of spring. The people at Stanton Drew all came to Bridget as she stood in the centre of the stone circle and tied ribbons onto the girdle, their hopes imbedded in each ribbon.

In a few days time, some friends will come around to help celebrate the poetry, healing and inspiration that is Bridget. They'll share our Bridget crosses.   

And now, bit by bit, day by day, the sun will come, it will warm the land, the flowers of spring will bloom and all will be well.