Speaker 1: Hey, are you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: it is Saturday. Time to go into the vault for
Speaker 1: a classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. I
Speaker 1: think this is one that you and Christian did back
Speaker 1: in right, Yeah, this one is about jade immortality, basically
Speaker 1: about the the use of jade and beliefs about jade
Speaker 1: from from Chinese history, particularly how it factors into the
Speaker 1: jade armor that was used in some of these burial practices.
Speaker 1: I believe we touched on this a little bit in
Speaker 1: uh a later episode that you and I did, oh,
Speaker 1: the one about the tomb of Chin Chi Huang. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we at least touched on it as as part of
Speaker 1: the history of of Chinese funeral traditions. Well, we hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and my name is Christian Sager.
Speaker 1: We have kind of like a unofficial series of episodes
Speaker 1: that we've been doing over the course of the last
Speaker 1: two years that are related to various Asian cultures and death,
Speaker 1: and this is another one of those. So we've talked
Speaker 1: about ghost burial before, we've talked about Chinese immortality. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then this is also slightly connected to the episode
Speaker 1: that we did on or maybe it was two episodes
Speaker 1: on mummification. Yeah, I feel like we've done two, maybe more.
Speaker 1: I know that we've talked about exploring more and more
Speaker 1: of the mummification cultures throughout the world. I know what
Speaker 1: it is. We we discussed Japanese custom in an episode. Yeah. Oh,
Speaker 1: and then there's also the monks. They have the self
Speaker 1: mummifying monks. Yes, those guys. That's the other one. So
Speaker 1: this is a long those lines. Today we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about jade burial suits. And once I got done
Speaker 1: researching this, my first thought was this would be a
Speaker 1: far cooler way to make a new Mummy franchise. They've
Speaker 1: been showing the trailers constantly for that New Mummy movie
Speaker 1: with Tom Cruise that's coming out this summer, and it
Speaker 1: looks awful, and I think that this would be a
Speaker 1: cool mummy like this mummy in this giant suit of
Speaker 1: jade armor coming at you. That would be so much fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you look at the images of this, and there
Speaker 1: should be an image of one of these suits of
Speaker 1: jade burial armor on the landing page for this episode.
Speaker 1: It's stuffitable your mind dot com. It's uh, it looks
Speaker 1: kind of like the villain in that first Thor movie,
Speaker 1: you know, that big suit of animate armor that he
Speaker 1: fought destroyer. Yeah, it looks kind of like the Destroyer.
Speaker 1: It's it's beautiful, and indeed, I could see an Eastern
Speaker 1: Mummy franchise really having some fun with this. Yeah. That
Speaker 1: being said, I did not see the Eastern Mummy entrigue
Speaker 1: like like the third or fourth Mummy film that came out.
Speaker 1: Oh did they do something like that or did Oh?
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I don't know what I having not
Speaker 1: seen it, I can't speak for the mummy design. However,
Speaker 1: I know there's a scene where yet he's attacks, so
Speaker 1: I do kind of want to watch it for that, Huh.
Speaker 1: I had no idea that even existed. This is like
Speaker 1: from the nineteen nineties Mummy franchise with a Scorpion King
Speaker 1: and all that. Yeah, this one was post Scorpion King
Speaker 1: and that's about all I know about. Okay, Well, maybe
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that one on trailer Talk when we
Speaker 1: do a Facebook live about these episodes this week. So
Speaker 1: in this episode, we're going we're going to be exploring
Speaker 1: a practice that that is tied directly to the Western
Speaker 1: Han dynasty, and we're gonna, I know a lot of
Speaker 1: you out there are not going to have a real
Speaker 1: firm handle on dynastic Chinese history. Don't worry. We're going
Speaker 1: to root all that where it needs to be placed
Speaker 1: in the in the timeline shortly. But these suits are
Speaker 1: you know, we can call them jade suits, we can
Speaker 1: call them jade armor. In the in manned in they're
Speaker 1: sometimes referred to as you shaw, which are jade caskets,
Speaker 1: or sometimes u y which are jade garments. And it
Speaker 1: is essentially a stone garment if you think about that,
Speaker 1: because because jade is a stone, and that's probably a
Speaker 1: great place to start. Really, let's just discuss what jade
Speaker 1: is before we pile on it's supernatural connotations and then
Speaker 1: get into Chinese history. Alright, So jade is essentially an
Speaker 1: ornamental green rock. Everyone has probably seen something that he's
Speaker 1: either made of jade or is supposed to be made
Speaker 1: of jade. But then what does that even mean, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of like in the local mall that we
Speaker 1: have here, there's like a couple like places where you
Speaker 1: can buy sort of like Chinese themed aesthetic decorations for
Speaker 1: the home, and usually there's like a piece of jade
Speaker 1: in it somewhere, or it might be made of some
Speaker 1: kind of fake jade. There's those um I forget what
Speaker 1: they're called, but they have they're like red uh ribbons
Speaker 1: or um threads and they've got a piece of jade
Speaker 1: woven into them. Oh yeah. You often see little little
Speaker 1: rings of jade, sometimes sometimes worn by by children in
Speaker 1: China still or incorporated into some sort of direct decoration
Speaker 1: or or personal adornment. And uh. The interesting thing here though,
Speaker 1: is that whatever you're calling jade jade is the name
Speaker 1: given to two distinct minerals uh neph right and jaded,
Speaker 1: and in their purest form, either of these is white
Speaker 1: uh in. In Chinese, it's referred to as mutton fat jade.
Speaker 1: And you also have minerals such as iron and chromium
Speaker 1: that give jade it's mini hughes. So there's not just
Speaker 1: one color of jade. It's not like a crayola. This
Speaker 1: is jade. Pulled it up to your stone and see
Speaker 1: if it matches between white and like very green, yeah,
Speaker 1: very in darker greens. Yeah. So let's talk about these
Speaker 1: two varieties real quick. Uh. The nef right is sometimes
Speaker 1: referred to as true jade. It's very strong, it has
Speaker 1: a more vivid green coloration. And this is the stuff
Speaker 1: that the Chinese worked with during the Han dynasty, which
Speaker 1: is what we're gonna be talking about today, because jadeit
Speaker 1: wasn't introduced to China until the late sixteen hundreds via Burma.
Speaker 1: So when we're talking about these pieces of jade armor,
Speaker 1: they're made using nef right, not jadeite. Now. Jadeite, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, is more fragile, and it has a
Speaker 1: brilliant gleaming surface when polished. Now jade is usually found
Speaker 1: inside pebbles or boulders, where like the rough stony exterior
Speaker 1: doesn't really give a clue as to what's in there.
Speaker 1: Jade itself, it can't be chipped or flaked, so it
Speaker 1: has to be worn down using a rough paste and
Speaker 1: a combination of rotary discs, grinders, and tools. And during
Speaker 1: the Han dynasty this was probably made. This paste was
Speaker 1: made with water grease, and sand and then iron tools
Speaker 1: had been developed specifically for the art and craft of
Speaker 1: working with jade to develop and work it further into
Speaker 1: various forms. Um So, I think this is a good
Speaker 1: point for me to just bring up, Like I think
Speaker 1: here in the West, Jade is sort of this very
Speaker 1: like stereotypical attached idea to uh like the orient right,
Speaker 1: It's very bound up in orientalism. Yeah. Like, do you
Speaker 1: remember that video game came out gosh, must have been
Speaker 1: ten fifteen years ago now, Jade Empire. I played the
Speaker 1: hell out of that game. Oh was this that was
Speaker 1: just a term based RPG. Yeah, it was made by
Speaker 1: the same people who made the Knights of the Old
Speaker 1: Republic games and the Dragon Age games. Very similar setup
Speaker 1: except for this was in It had a really cool setting.
Speaker 1: But it was like a steampunk mythological China um and
Speaker 1: you know, as such used very like kind of stereotypical
Speaker 1: pieces from that mythology. But still, I mean, I have
Speaker 1: to admit, as much as I love exploring uh Asian history,
Speaker 1: I also love fantasy inspired by Asian So yeah, uh
Speaker 1: so I should I should check it out a little bit.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's one of those where the graphics
Speaker 1: don't really hold up. I mean, I haven't played it
Speaker 1: in so long. I think it was I played it
Speaker 1: on the original Xbox. But it was fun. You got
Speaker 1: like this various group of characters. You would have I
Speaker 1: think like three characters at a time that would go
Speaker 1: on these like sort of dungeon crawl missions and like
Speaker 1: one would be a spell It was very D and
Speaker 1: D but it was like we've talked about this on
Speaker 1: the show before, the sort of like racist Oriental Adventures
Speaker 1: D and D where they would like, you know, you'd
Speaker 1: have a spell caster, you'd have a warrior, and you'd
Speaker 1: have like a ninja or something like that, and they
Speaker 1: would like go there. It was really just like a
Speaker 1: fighter rogue and a magic user um and yeah, they'd
Speaker 1: have these various missions. They'd fight monsters from Chinese mythology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was fun aesthetically. So there was probably a little
Speaker 1: jade in there, and oh yeah, yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: the jade was a big theme in it. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: jade is is a big theme in uh in Chinese traditions,
Speaker 1: So we should probably discuss what it's supernatural powers were
Speaker 1: thought to be. We've we've given a brief overview of
Speaker 1: its physical properties. Certainly you can go in deeper if
Speaker 1: you want to. We're not really a minerals podcast, but
Speaker 1: there's a lot of great information out there about jade
Speaker 1: if that's your thing. As as far as supernatural qualities go, yeah,
Speaker 1: jade was believed to have protective and preservative qualities, warding
Speaker 1: off both decay and evil spirits. I've also read that
Speaker 1: some believe jade darkens as the where gets richer, likenses
Speaker 1: ticket poorer. So it's kind of like a mood ring
Speaker 1: for your you know, your your financial status. That's great.
Speaker 1: Instead of having like an app on your phone that
Speaker 1: tells you how your bank accounts doing, you just have
Speaker 1: like a little piece of jade, like like on one
Speaker 1: of those red wristbands. Yeah, you meet somebody, you want
Speaker 1: to know where they stand, you just take a peek
Speaker 1: of their jade. Now. It's also worth pointing out that
Speaker 1: in terms of just how important jade is in Chinese
Speaker 1: tradition and mythology, you have u d the Jade Emperor,
Speaker 1: and he stands as the supreme god in the Chinese
Speaker 1: mythological pantheon. And if you if you actually think back
Speaker 1: to the episode on the Chinese zodiac that stuff to
Speaker 1: blow your mind did a while back. Uh, there's this
Speaker 1: whole parable of the swimming zodiac animals in a race,
Speaker 1: and they're racing for U D. Have you seen any
Speaker 1: of those who movies about Dr D. I haven't. I'm
Speaker 1: familiar with him by name, but I haven't watched their
Speaker 1: fun You should check him out now. It's also important
Speaker 1: to note that Dallas alchemists as well put put an
Speaker 1: emphasis on jade as part of an immortality elixir that
Speaker 1: also contained gold, silver, arsenic, and other ores, and it
Speaker 1: was said to provide resistance to aging and decay. In fact,
Speaker 1: in the three twenty book Po Po which means the
Speaker 1: Master Embracing Simplicity, author Gee Hong wrote that gold and
Speaker 1: jade inserted into the nine orifices prevented corpses from decaying. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this comes up a lot today when we're talking
Speaker 1: about this jade burial armor. And I wanna establish something here.
Speaker 1: So I read this and I went, I had to
Speaker 1: count my orifices, and I was like, I kept coming
Speaker 1: up short. I only counted seven, and then I realized
Speaker 1: they were counting the eyes. Yes, And it might sound
Speaker 1: kind of grotesque. To think of eye plugs, but they're
Speaker 1: not like corks the ice, more like their little shields.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like when cucumbers on the eye. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the one I was going for was how they would
Speaker 1: put coins on people's eyes that they could pay the
Speaker 1: ferryman for the river Sharon. But yeah, this is obviously
Speaker 1: different mythology, but it's the same principle. It's like little
Speaker 1: jade shields that went over your eyes. So apparently I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm wrong or right, but I never
Speaker 1: thought of my eyes as being orifice. Is well, it's
Speaker 1: it's where the light comes in, right, true, something's going
Speaker 1: in there now. It's interesting I mentioned children wearing jade
Speaker 1: bengals earlier and you you still see this used in China.
Speaker 1: And this is the idea here is that this protects
Speaker 1: the child from harm, including soul separating fright by a demon.
Speaker 1: And uh, I actually ran across the cool source for this.
Speaker 1: So if we if we ever want to do an
Speaker 1: episode on Chinese exorcism, uh, playing off our past episodes
Speaker 1: on exorcism, this would be a good one to seek out.
Speaker 1: I think that's hard, yes from me, but audience, let
Speaker 1: us know if you're interested in Chinese exorcism. Now in
Speaker 1: terms of other associations, some traditional Chinese medicine approaches call
Speaker 1: for the use of jade massaging tools to help I
Speaker 1: was reading about using it on wrinkles on the face.
Speaker 1: And they are also ingredients with jade in the name
Speaker 1: in Chinese traditional medicine. They're not shy jade, such as
Speaker 1: a jade windscreen powder that's just a dried root of
Speaker 1: of a particular plant, but it has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the mineral itself. So even though like we're well
Speaker 1: past this sort of you know, myth that jade has
Speaker 1: this ability to stave off the k it's still used
Speaker 1: in a lot of those sort of I guess homeopathic methodologies.
Speaker 1: Like I was reading about the one of the ones, uh,
Speaker 1: the ancient Chinese jade stone being used, like I think
Speaker 1: they would like wrap it around your neck and it
Speaker 1: was supposed to help you with T M J H. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's I mean ultimately comes down to the
Speaker 1: idea that here is this very beautiful, cool looking stone
Speaker 1: that came out of the ground. Surely it's worth keeping
Speaker 1: around for something, right. Yeah, it reminds me of hematite.
Speaker 1: There's there's similar stuff surrounding hematite. Yeah, but just I
Speaker 1: think in different cultures, and you know a lot of
Speaker 1: this bleeds into into other cultures outside of China. I know,
Speaker 1: if you if you happen to visit a Korean sauna,
Speaker 1: and we have one of these in the Atlanta Era
Speaker 1: and j June um and and I love going there.
Speaker 1: They have these various saunas that sauna rooms that have
Speaker 1: different minerals there, and they have one that has jade
Speaker 1: in it. And the idea here is that quote jade
Speaker 1: increases metabolism, improve circulation, and relieves arthritis pain. All right, now,
Speaker 1: this is giving me an idea for a business, and
Speaker 1: I'm not very entrepreneurial, so maybe somebody out there can
Speaker 1: start this. So you combine the jade sauna idea with
Speaker 1: the floatation sensory deprivation tank, and you build a sensory
Speaker 1: deprivation tank out of jade, and then you climb inside
Speaker 1: that and you float in salinated water for an hour.
Speaker 1: That would be amazing because that's what that's something that's
Speaker 1: kind of lacking with with float tank scenarios is they
Speaker 1: are very they're very secular. Yeah, they could use a
Speaker 1: little um mystical spicing. Yeah, yeah, that would be fun.
Speaker 1: I'd do it. Yeah, plug plug our orifices with us,
Speaker 1: give me nine pieces of jade. All right, Well, before
Speaker 1: we get those nine pieces of jade, why don't we
Speaker 1: take a quick break, and when we get back, we're
Speaker 1: gonna give you a little bit of a rundown on
Speaker 1: the Western Han dynasty. Alright, we're back. So I realized
Speaker 1: Chinese dynastics secession can be confusing for folks. Uh and
Speaker 1: and certainly especially if you're just going from zero trying
Speaker 1: to go to from zero to fifty on it. It's
Speaker 1: it's a lot to take. I will admit. I mean,
Speaker 1: as some listeners know, I spent time in China as
Speaker 1: a kid. I learned Mandarin growing up, and I lived
Speaker 1: in Singapore during high school, and Chinese history is completely
Speaker 1: lost on me. It's really tough for me to keep
Speaker 1: track of it. Yeah, I I'm constantly referring back to
Speaker 1: the chart with the with the dynasty's. Now. I know
Speaker 1: there's a little song I've heard people sing this where
Speaker 1: it's Fred Fred Jacka, except it's it's the different dynasties.
Speaker 1: I have not heard that, Okay, I when I say
Speaker 1: I've heard it, I've I've seen a video with two
Speaker 1: old white Chinese scholars singing it to each other as
Speaker 1: an example of something you learn in school when you're
Speaker 1: learning about Chinese sisters. All right, so it's like a
Speaker 1: new modic device. Yeah, okay, so we're not gonna throw
Speaker 1: it all at you. Basically, we're gonna go from the
Speaker 1: beginning up until the Han dynasty just and throughout the years,
Speaker 1: so you can place it in the general time frame.
Speaker 1: And uh, the Han dynasty is essentially the fourth or
Speaker 1: fifth dynasty or the second Imperial Dynasty. It ultimately depends
Speaker 1: on what you count as a dynasty. Uh. And and
Speaker 1: this has to do with sort of a legendary mythic time.
Speaker 1: So let's start from the beginning. First, up, you have
Speaker 1: the Shod dynasty. This is to six b C. And
Speaker 1: it's largely mythological, with some very early Bronze Age evidence.
Speaker 1: So yeah, this is the time of gods and heroes
Speaker 1: and so. And this is why some don't actually count
Speaker 1: this in terms of historical dynasties. But then comes the
Speaker 1: Shan dynasty, and this was long considered apocryphal, but his
Speaker 1: historians now correlated with oracle Bone writings. This period takes
Speaker 1: us up to roughly even twenty three b C. And
Speaker 1: the Joe dynasty. Now this is the first millennium BC,
Speaker 1: and this is a time of conflict in China. And
Speaker 1: there are two periods here that are a particular note,
Speaker 1: and that's the Spring and Autumn from seven eighty one
Speaker 1: b C and the Warring States period four through to
Speaker 1: b C. Okay, So what I'm seeing here so far
Speaker 1: is it seems like these dynasties lasts you know, roughly
Speaker 1: around five years. Yeah, yeah, so so far. Now, at
Speaker 1: the end of the Warring States period, the Chin Dynasty begins,
Speaker 1: and this is when the Chin Kingdom conquered other central
Speaker 1: Chinese states and became the first truly imperial dynasty under
Speaker 1: Chin cha Hung, the first Emperor of China. And it
Speaker 1: was during this rule that the Northern Border Wall was implemented,
Speaker 1: what we now call the Great Wall, and in the
Speaker 1: first of many peasant uprisings to to echo through Chinese history,
Speaker 1: Lubang rose up and conquered China to found finally the
Speaker 1: Han dynasty and two oh six b c E. And
Speaker 1: this was only you know, fifteen years later, Okay. So
Speaker 1: this this is where we're zoning in on in terms
Speaker 1: of this jade burial armor being created, right, But there's
Speaker 1: obviously many dynasties afterwards. So yeah, the Han dynasty is
Speaker 1: is big money early on like this is uh, this
Speaker 1: is again a time of things coming together, of unity.
Speaker 1: Certainly there's still lots of lingering problems as with any
Speaker 1: imperial scenario, but but it's it's a time where, uh,
Speaker 1: where there's a there's enough there are enough riches out there,
Speaker 1: there's enough specialization that you can have something like a
Speaker 1: fancy funeral tradition take place. Now, overall, the Han dynasty
Speaker 1: run ran from two o two or two oh six
Speaker 1: b C until two one CE, so you were talking
Speaker 1: about a pretty long stretch here, uh, and that at
Speaker 1: the end of this in to C that's when everything
Speaker 1: splits into the three kingdoms. But we divided the Han
Speaker 1: dynasty up into the first the former or Western Han dynasty,
Speaker 1: and the and also the later or Eastern Han dynasty.
Speaker 1: And that's because in the midst of this uh, this
Speaker 1: long you know, four century stretch, you have a rebellion
Speaker 1: take place, and so and basically what happens is Han
Speaker 1: dynasty official Wang Mang sees his power and UH and
Speaker 1: and this is referred to as the Shin dynasty nine
Speaker 1: through D. He does a pretty poor job. And then
Speaker 1: the hans A reclaimed power in twenty a d after
Speaker 1: besieging the Imperial Palace. He dies in the process. So
Speaker 1: in other words, you have to four hundred years of
Speaker 1: of Han rule. But there's this one little period where
Speaker 1: a usurper, like a twenty period or actually less than
Speaker 1: twenty years of this one guy ruling and they just
Speaker 1: getting taken down. So again, this is an influential four
Speaker 1: centuries in Chinese history saw the institution of Confucian norms,
Speaker 1: the roots of the imperial examination system, UH, the an
Speaker 1: age of great economic, technological, cultural, and social progress. Hans
Speaker 1: still refers to the main Chinese ethnic group. And this
Speaker 1: is again also the period that gives us these these
Speaker 1: amazing jade burial suits. Okay, so we've teased enough. What's
Speaker 1: a jade burial suit? Because I think when I first
Speaker 1: heard about this, my thought was that it was like
Speaker 1: Iron Man, and it was, but iron Man made of jade,
Speaker 1: and that's not correct. There's thousands of little pieces and
Speaker 1: these things. Yeah, it's between two thousand and four thousand
Speaker 1: of these little jade pieces, all of its sewn together,
Speaker 1: and it's sewn together depending on your station, it might
Speaker 1: be gold, silver, or silk. So really the suit described
Speaker 1: option is probably better. This is a a suit made
Speaker 1: for a corpse, and it's a suit made of maybe
Speaker 1: you know, mostly stone, and maybe gold and silver or
Speaker 1: silk as well. I can't imagine that a living person
Speaker 1: could wear one of these and and move. It would
Speaker 1: be incredibly heavy. Yeah, only a supernatural um, you know,
Speaker 1: undead being in Hollywood movie could do it. Now, we
Speaker 1: referred back to our episode on ghost burial earlier, and
Speaker 1: and I do want to touch on on that real
Speaker 1: quick because one of a couple of the ideas we
Speaker 1: discussed in there are central to understanding why this much
Speaker 1: care was was taken, uh, you know for a dead individual.
Speaker 1: So we we discussed the importance of siao the filial
Speaker 1: pity and Chinese tradition is rooted in Dallas to philosophy
Speaker 1: Confucian family values, and it concerns the undying nature of
Speaker 1: the human soul. You know, the dead live on in
Speaker 1: the afterlife. Uh. And then they're also tied to this
Speaker 1: Chinese no of of of structural completeness, right, that you
Speaker 1: have this this basic unity of the family and if everything,
Speaker 1: if anything, is out of out of place there, it's
Speaker 1: going to cause disharmony in your life and potentially in
Speaker 1: the afterlife. Yeah, we went into far greater detail on
Speaker 1: this in the Ghost Burial episode, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: reference a USA Today article that was specifically about the
Speaker 1: jade burial suits and how it referred to this to
Speaker 1: for Western readers. So it claims that tombs in general
Speaker 1: were thought to be portals between the living and the dead.
Speaker 1: And basically the concept was, and this is similar to
Speaker 1: what we went over in Ghost Burial, the soul was divided.
Speaker 1: There's one part of the soul that goes to heaven,
Speaker 1: the other part stays in the body, and the one
Speaker 1: that's in the body had to be appeased or else
Speaker 1: it would turn evil, while the one that goes to
Speaker 1: heaven acted on behalf of the loved ones by offering
Speaker 1: them either protection or good fortune. And this is why
Speaker 1: the living tried to ensure that the deceased were well
Speaker 1: provided for in death. So you get very similar death
Speaker 1: rituals to the Egyptians in that like people are buried
Speaker 1: with their things, with things that they think will keep
Speaker 1: them comfortable. Yeah, there's this this this mix though with
Speaker 1: the the ancestor of veneration that it's not only is
Speaker 1: this somebody that deserved a proper burial and deserves to
Speaker 1: be you know, buried and with the things that they loved.
Speaker 1: This is also someone who can speak on your behalf
Speaker 1: in the afterlife, Like, this is an important contact to have.
Speaker 1: So you want them to be happy, You want to
Speaker 1: do right by them. So the very first one of
Speaker 1: these suits, which is part of that, was documented in
Speaker 1: literature around a d three twenty. But that's documented in literature.
Speaker 1: We didn't find them until far afterward. Yeah, it wasn't
Speaker 1: until nineteen fifty eight that the suit hypothesis here that
Speaker 1: that these little jade pieces we were we were finding
Speaker 1: were part of the jade suit. You know, it was
Speaker 1: just a theory at the time. And uh, it wasn't
Speaker 1: until we actually found a really undisturbed tomb nine in nine,
Speaker 1: two tombs and heavy and this is where we found
Speaker 1: tombs undisturbed by looters or mining efforts, and it resulted
Speaker 1: in two complete, recovered and restored suits of jade armor.
Speaker 1: And this is quite a story. And if you've you know, well,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about this, but museums here in
Speaker 1: the United States have had these suits one or the
Speaker 1: other brought around on tour basically, right, And so it's
Speaker 1: possible that you've actually seen one of these sort of
Speaker 1: restructured and put on display in a museum here in
Speaker 1: the West. But uh, that's weird to me. I'll talk
Speaker 1: about it more later after we get through it, but
Speaker 1: I think it's a little it's it seems slightly offensive
Speaker 1: to me, especially given the nature of why it was
Speaker 1: built in the first place. Now you mentioned restored, and
Speaker 1: that's key because if you see one of these new
Speaker 1: museum on display, it is almost assuredly been restored because
Speaker 1: despite the ideas tied up with jade, jade doesn't or
Speaker 1: at least the jade suit is it was executed, does
Speaker 1: not actually preserve the body. So the body ends up
Speaker 1: rotting away, there's nothing left but bone. The suit collapses,
Speaker 1: and then sometimes the casket collapses as well on top
Speaker 1: of it, so everything has to be put back together.
Speaker 1: Now you actually have seen one, right, Uh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I've seen a couple, but the one that I
Speaker 1: got to see in China is the one that impressed
Speaker 1: me the most. It was at the Museum of the
Speaker 1: Western Han Dynasty, Mausoleum of the Nanyu King and Guang Show.
Speaker 1: So I was there with my wife, my my my
Speaker 1: newly acquired son. He was not impressed at all as
Speaker 1: I strolled him around in the stroke how old was he?
Speaker 1: Though he was like two or three, he was like
Speaker 1: he was one and a half. He was not having
Speaker 1: any of it. But but the tomb was. It was
Speaker 1: really impressive for me anyway. Uh. It was a hidden
Speaker 1: twenty meters sixty five point six ft underground and the
Speaker 1: king himself was covered with with a with a silk
Speaker 1: and two thousand two pieces of jade to compose his suit.
Speaker 1: And the whole tomb really had the feel of just
Speaker 1: a cosmic vessel, and that this was the suit of
Speaker 1: a of a necronot, you know. Uh yeah, but very
Speaker 1: much in keeping with with the feeling that I get
Speaker 1: from from any kind of Egyptian artifacts. Now a number
Speaker 1: of other such jade suits accompanied by hordes of silks,
Speaker 1: lacquer ware, figurines, and bronzes. You'll find these displayed in
Speaker 1: many Chinese museums. H they turn up as you pointed out,
Speaker 1: in an international Collections and Traveling Exhibits and three count
Speaker 1: from the Institute of Archaeology and Beijing claimed ten thousand
Speaker 1: Han tombs had been discovered, and this resulted in twenty
Speaker 1: tombs with twenty three jade suit remain. All right, we're
Speaker 1: gonna take a quick break and then when we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll jump right back into it. All right, we're back.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that I was reading was
Speaker 1: that at the time that these were being made, and
Speaker 1: this goes along with our episode on Egyptian mummification. I mean,
Speaker 1: this was a process. It wasn't just like they had
Speaker 1: Jade's suits ready to go right. Um. These suits would
Speaker 1: have taken the most skilled of jade smith's over ten
Speaker 1: years to make. So they were either building them before
Speaker 1: the person died, or the person died, they were probably
Speaker 1: embalmed in some way, and then the suit was built
Speaker 1: around them ten years after they had passed away. Now,
Speaker 1: as should be obvious from that ten thousand tombs, twenty
Speaker 1: three Jade's suit remains a figure there. These were not
Speaker 1: for everybody. These were specifically for members of the Han aristocracy,
Speaker 1: because ultimately, who else is going to afford a low
Speaker 1: luxury burial item like this, UH, the the work John
Speaker 1: Show or the Book of the Later Han. The Chinese
Speaker 1: court document from this time explained that your your rank
Speaker 1: determined what sort of jade's suit you were well suited for. Uh.
Speaker 1: Emperors had gold threaded jade suits, vassal king's high ranking
Speaker 1: imperial concubines and princesses had jade suits with silver thread,
Speaker 1: and dowager concupines and sisters of the emperor lesser aristocrats
Speaker 1: had suits with copper thread. I wouldn't be offended to
Speaker 1: wear a copper one, No I would. I would. I'd
Speaker 1: be happy with with with copper or if anybody needs
Speaker 1: a dowager concubine call me now. Sometimes there were added decorations.
Speaker 1: Emperor Woo's suit was decorated with imagery of the flood
Speaker 1: dragon and other sacred creatures, and this is referred to
Speaker 1: as the flood Dragon jade suit. But a lot of
Speaker 1: them are going to be, you know, featureless polished jade. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One thing to remember here too, is like we're thrown
Speaker 1: down in terms of gold and silver and copper, is
Speaker 1: that jade was more valuable in China than gold or
Speaker 1: silver was in the West and jade crafting. As we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, it achieved its height during the reign of
Speaker 1: Emperor Chien long Uh, and that was from seventeen thirty
Speaker 1: six to seventeen CE. He actually made all jade in
Speaker 1: the country his private property, and the idea was that
Speaker 1: if anybody tried to trade jade, it was punishable by
Speaker 1: death because he he owned it all, regardless of whether
Speaker 1: or not it was actually in his possession. Now this
Speaker 1: ties in nicely with the next point, and that's that
Speaker 1: evidence supports the theory that this was a There was
Speaker 1: probably a centralized place or a couple of places for
Speaker 1: manufacturing these suits. Um artisans would work on what was
Speaker 1: again essentially a luxury item, So you can't just go
Speaker 1: anywhere and get a jade suit and um. And while
Speaker 1: these still couldn't today, yeah, I mean unless unless you
Speaker 1: know a guy UM. It's also worth noting that while
Speaker 1: these items were for specific members of Han aristocracy, there
Speaker 1: were violations, including an account and this was shared in
Speaker 1: a in a paper that will will sign on the
Speaker 1: landing page by Jeffrey Cow and Yang Joe Shing. And
Speaker 1: this was the tale of a eunuch named Joo Jong
Speaker 1: who secretly buried his father in a jade suit, but
Speaker 1: then he was found out and so the casket was
Speaker 1: opened up uh and um and busted out, and his
Speaker 1: entire family was imprisoned for the for the for the crime.
Speaker 1: Think about that, I mean, like, given how difficult these
Speaker 1: things are to make, Like somehow you secretly had one
Speaker 1: of those, made you bury your dad in it, and
Speaker 1: then you're found out and caught and just like utterly
Speaker 1: punished for it. That's that's that's story, Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and it shows how how how important all of this
Speaker 1: was to the culture at the time. You know, this
Speaker 1: was this was not just you couldn't just be frivolous
Speaker 1: and get a jade suit. No, the jade suit was
Speaker 1: for particular members of society, and to violate uh those
Speaker 1: those societal divisions was was a dire matter. Now, we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier how in the in the late nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: you had this hypothesis these little jade pieces everyone was
Speaker 1: finding were we're bits of a jade suit, but that
Speaker 1: it wasn't until ninety eight when they found those two
Speaker 1: tombs and heavy this is when we actually had evidence,
Speaker 1: we actually had too complete recovered and ultimately restored suits
Speaker 1: of jade armor and uh in particular, they were lushing
Speaker 1: printaging of the Kingdom of jeong Shan. So this was
Speaker 1: the son of the Western Han Emperor Jing and his
Speaker 1: consort dal Juan. Now, while their bodies were undisturbed, the
Speaker 1: corpses had collapsed, the casket had collapsed, but everything was
Speaker 1: still in place. He had gold thread, she had silk.
Speaker 1: His suit contained two thousand four jade pieces, hers contained
Speaker 1: at two thousand, one hundred sixty And in both suits
Speaker 1: the only the outer surfaces were polished and the inner
Speaker 1: surfaces were scarred by circular cutting tools and straight edge tools,
Speaker 1: the very tools that you referred to earlier for the
Speaker 1: shaping of jade. Yeah. And while the jade you know,
Speaker 1: didn't protect their bodies from decomposition as was thought, the
Speaker 1: porous rock that was actually in this this I guess
Speaker 1: cave is the best way to describe it, did have
Speaker 1: absorbed a capabilities. When they were found in nineteen archaeologists
Speaker 1: had to work through get this two brick walls and
Speaker 1: a thick plate of molten iron that had been poured
Speaker 1: between them. And this is obviously because of how bad
Speaker 1: the grave robbing thing had become and and partially why
Speaker 1: this one was hadn't been robbed yet, you know. Uh,
Speaker 1: so they had to work their way through this. Lu
Speaker 1: Sheng's body had those jade plugs that we talked about earlier.
Speaker 1: He had him in his nose, ears, and mouth, and
Speaker 1: then the little jade shields for his eyes. They also
Speaker 1: each had guilt bronze headrests that were inlaid with jade,
Speaker 1: and they held jade crescents in their hand. Now, the
Speaker 1: coffin that was found on the floor that was made
Speaker 1: of four thousand pieces of jade, and it had just
Speaker 1: completely fallen apart into a pile on the Tumbe floor.
Speaker 1: There were also lots of sculptures, as we mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: They they they've placed lots of little items around too
Speaker 1: that were also made of jade, including those of a bixie,
Speaker 1: which was a mythological powerful winged beast that averted evil.
Speaker 1: And I included a picture in here. It's kind of
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a dragon. It's like a cross
Speaker 1: between like a dragon and a dog with it's got wings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I keep wanting to do like a full exploration as
Speaker 1: if such a thing were possible. Of of Chinese dragons
Speaker 1: because there's so many different varieties and there are a
Speaker 1: lot of things where you look at them and you think, oh,
Speaker 1: well that's a dragon or that's kind of a dragon turtle.
Speaker 1: But they all have very particular identities and symbol and
Speaker 1: symbolic power like you would and it would depend where
Speaker 1: you would want to engrave one or include a statue
Speaker 1: of one. You would protect certain certain structures. You know.
Speaker 1: I think I pronounced that opinion wrong too, because I
Speaker 1: just went with Bixie because it looks like it rhymes
Speaker 1: with pixie. But I think it's supposed to be be
Speaker 1: she Okay, So I look at it looks like a
Speaker 1: Bixie when I can imagine his name m Pixie. I Hey,
Speaker 1: there's the Pokemon of their time. I mean, this thing
Speaker 1: looks pretty cool. It's it's kind of like a fat
Speaker 1: chested wagon dog. Indeed, now, obviously, when we when we
Speaker 1: look at the jade burial suits, we're looking at the
Speaker 1: convergence of two different customs, burial in armor and the
Speaker 1: sacred use of jade. So there are plenty of examples
Speaker 1: of of of just normal decorative armor suits that were
Speaker 1: worn by bodies prior to this, and the actually the
Speaker 1: prince that we just referred to, I believe he was
Speaker 1: buried with a suit of armor, and the suit of
Speaker 1: armor was actually of more modern design, but he was
Speaker 1: that that was just included with him, and he was
Speaker 1: actually buried, of course, in the jade armor. Now my
Speaker 1: understanding is these two in particular that we're referring to,
Speaker 1: these are the ones that are touring around the world
Speaker 1: and you can see them in various museum locations. Yes,
Speaker 1: I believe so. All right, so you're probably wondering, well, then,
Speaker 1: what happens to the jade suit. It's like, this is
Speaker 1: a pretty fantastic tradition. Why does it fade away? Why
Speaker 1: does something so rich and so ornate just vanish? And
Speaker 1: the answer is interesting the answering. The answer has to
Speaker 1: do with all of those plundered tombs. Yeah, it's all
Speaker 1: about grave robbing. Yeah, and this was fascinating and disturbing
Speaker 1: as well when we read what the the the the
Speaker 1: the tomb raiders would do with the suits when they
Speaker 1: pilfered them. Yeah, there were more than two dozen suits
Speaker 1: that have been discovered since. But the reason why there
Speaker 1: aren't more is because in a D two D and
Speaker 1: twenty three Emperor when of Way ordered that the production
Speaker 1: of them had to be stopped because of so much looting.
Speaker 1: And what would happen is these looters would go in
Speaker 1: and they would burn the suits solely so they could
Speaker 1: retrieve the gold thread that was within. They didn't care
Speaker 1: about the jade. And as you pointed out off air, well,
Speaker 1: if you had these little pieces of jade that were
Speaker 1: perfectly cut down to make a suit, you can't go
Speaker 1: sell that on the black market because somebody is going
Speaker 1: to know, oh, this must have come from the specific suit,
Speaker 1: from the specific prints. But gold you can melt down
Speaker 1: and turn in whatever you once, so you can always
Speaker 1: come up with a story about that gold. But those
Speaker 1: jade pieces were clearly stolen from an important person's body,
Speaker 1: and you might as well just walk around with a
Speaker 1: sign and mandarin that says execute me now. You you
Speaker 1: refer back earlier to the poorest nature of the jade.
Speaker 1: And there is this this idea that is put out
Speaker 1: there that even though jade does not have any magical
Speaker 1: body preserving properties, and you know, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: no soft tissue has been been found preserved by these
Speaker 1: funeral rights, it has been suggested that this the poorest
Speaker 1: nature of the stone itself might actually preserve some genetic material,
Speaker 1: and that you know, d NA might be found intermixed
Speaker 1: with the jade. A lot of accounts of this notion
Speaker 1: refer back to a piece of title Immortal Jade by
Speaker 1: Sherry Uh to Lynco and this is published in the
Speaker 1: Canadian Medical Journal. But to my knowledge, there's been no
Speaker 1: actual evidence for this thus far. Okay, but I could
Speaker 1: see why it would be an interesting avenue of research, Like,
Speaker 1: there's some possibilities for genealogical research, especially you know, you
Speaker 1: mentioned the Han ethnic group earlier. Related to that, that
Speaker 1: could be some interesting stuff if you're looking at DNA samples. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think one of the problems there is that is
Speaker 1: that that we do have Uh tombs and graves from
Speaker 1: the Han dynasty that we're able to study and and
Speaker 1: get genetic information from. So it's not like these would
Speaker 1: be the one place we would find it. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this so this leads into my I know I mentioned
Speaker 1: this earlier, but it's just it seems really weirdly offensive
Speaker 1: that these relics are kind of pulled out of where
Speaker 1: they were kept, trotted out across the world and displayed
Speaker 1: in museums. I remember the High Museum here in Atlanta
Speaker 1: had the Terracotta warriors a couple of years ago, and
Speaker 1: they were very cool. But the so my understanding was
Speaker 1: those terracotta warriors were buried with, you know, on one
Speaker 1: very much like these jade suits were, and I felt
Speaker 1: similar then. I don't know. I suppose if they didn't
Speaker 1: do this, the tombs would eventually be looted by somebody.
Speaker 1: But to me, I guess the idea more along the
Speaker 1: lines of what you saw when you were in China
Speaker 1: is you go to the actual site itself and you
Speaker 1: see them that is at least like sort of compromising.
Speaker 1: You're allowing them to keep these suits that they uh
Speaker 1: that they believed we're going to protect them in the afterlife. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess this gets into a more complicated
Speaker 1: issue and and and it's gonna vary, you know, from
Speaker 1: culture to culture, and depending how far back in time
Speaker 1: you're going, Because I it was instantly makes me think
Speaker 1: back to when I was at the Field Museum in Chicago.
Speaker 1: Instantly we went up there for C. Two e two
Speaker 1: and Joe and I went over there, and they have
Speaker 1: a wonderful Native American section a lot of it devoted
Speaker 1: to Northwest Coast Native people's and uh, you know, they
Speaker 1: have masks, they have costumes, details about their various you know,
Speaker 1: rich um spiritual traditions. But there's a section that they've
Speaker 1: completely um marked off. You can't see into it anymore
Speaker 1: because the display depicts uh, important artifacts from their funeral rights. Okay, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So somewhere along the line, like maybe that tribe and
Speaker 1: its current iteration said we're uncomfortable with us, please don't
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, so it's like a current people saying
Speaker 1: this is we find this to be disrespectful. This needs
Speaker 1: to be handled in a more appropriate manner. I'd be
Speaker 1: curious if there's if there's anyone in China who feels
Speaker 1: that way about this stuff, or if it's just kind
Speaker 1: of like they've moved past that uh veneration for this
Speaker 1: particular dynasty and they're okay with you know, sending them
Speaker 1: around the world and having them looked at because I
Speaker 1: guess in a way it spreads Chinese culture. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's curious. Well, if you're a listener out there and
Speaker 1: you have any idea, maybe you've lived in China or
Speaker 1: your Chinese yourself please let us know. I'd be curious indeed.
Speaker 1: So so there you have it. Hopefully we've provided decent
Speaker 1: snapshot of another just really interesting funeral tradition. Uh A
Speaker 1: an artistic tradition, a time period, a little about the
Speaker 1: mineral and the possibility of some sort of genetic material
Speaker 1: actually being preserved by this, uh this supernaturally infused a
Speaker 1: funeral rite. Now, I guess some people are probably thinking
Speaker 1: that I'm a bit of a hypocrite because I started
Speaker 1: off the episode saying I would love to see a
Speaker 1: movie about a jade burial suited mummy, but at the
Speaker 1: same time I kind of am uncomfortable about actually looking
Speaker 1: at the real thing. So, you know, I'd be curious
Speaker 1: if you If you've got any information about this that
Speaker 1: we missed, please let us know. You can reach out
Speaker 1: to us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram.
Speaker 1: If you've seen these before and you've got details that
Speaker 1: you want to let us know about, please tell us
Speaker 1: that too, or maybe even some pictures that would be cool.
Speaker 1: Uh do you wear jade? If you wear ja, lets
Speaker 1: share any kind of you know, supernatural ideas that you
Speaker 1: carry around with it, and then you can always visit
Speaker 1: our website, which is Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's where you'll find uh. All the podcasts,
Speaker 1: including several of these we've mentioned, the Chinese immortality, the
Speaker 1: ghost marriage, the various mummification episodes, the Chinese zodiac, all
Speaker 1: of those are there, and we'll trying to include links
Speaker 1: on the landing page for this episode. And if you
Speaker 1: just want to write us the old fashioned way, whether
Speaker 1: it's in English or Mandarin, you can write us at
Speaker 1: blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com for
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