The Han Dynasty's Jade Burial Suits: Tomb Raiders and Cosmic Immortality

In 1968, Chinese archaeologists opened a forgotten tomb at Mancheng in Hebei province and found Prince Liu Sheng encased in a suit of over 2,400 pieces of jade stitched with gold wire. This episode explores the Han dynasty's extraordinary jade burial suits — not just as stunning artifacts, but as windows into Han cosmology, the belief in jade's power to preserve the body and soul, and the ruthless tomb-robbing that stripped nearly all such suits from history. Lucas explains the labor and cost of crafting these suits, the hierarchy of materials (gold, silver, copper, silk thread), and the shocking discovery in 2023 of a jade suit from the Eastern Han in Shandong. He also connects the Mancheng tombs to the broader Han obsession with immortality — from alchemical elixirs to Emperor Wu's quest for the isles of the immortals. Luna asks about the thieves who got there first, and the conversation touches on the political symbolism of jade, the trade networks that brought nephrite from Khotan, and why the suits were banned after the Han fell. A rich, specific dive into one of the most mesmerizing material cultures of the ancient world.

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