Newly unearthed mummy to stimulate tourism in East China province

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 ◆ Newly unearthed mummy to stimulate tourism in East China province

Tourism officials here are hoping that a female mummy unearthed recently will attract the same crowds of admirers she got during her lifetime 500 years ago.

The 1.55-meter-tall mummy could be the body of a royal concubine that lived during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), archeologists said.

Unearthed earlier this month on the campus of the Nanchang-based East China Jiaotong University, she was well preserved, wearing a gold crown and splendid silk clothes.

Excavations at the site have also produced gold pendants, jade plates, rings, gold and silver coins and silk embroidered garments.

Though no tombstone or epitaph has been found to identify the mummy, some archeologists presumed it may have been a royal concubine of Zhu Quan, whose tomb was unearthed in Xinjian, a county in the outskirts of Nanchang, capital of east China's Jiangxi Province, in 1958.

It is said that Zhu Quan, the 17th son of Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang,founder of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), was regarded highly by his father, but was transferred from Inner Mongolia to Nanchang byhis fourth brother, who seized the throne when their father died.
Zhu Quan's tomb, a structure 31.70 meters in length, over three meters high and encircled by blue bricks, is believed by experts to be the largest imperial tomb south of the Yangtze River.

The provincial tourism administration has joined hands with the cultural relics authorities to promote Zhu Quan's tomb to tourists from home and abroad, said a source here.

"Highlighted by the newly unearthed mummy, more cultural relics from the Ming Dynasty, restoration of some ancient architecture and the authentic calligraphic works and paintings by Zhu Quan, the site will make an important tourist attraction," said Professor Chen Wenhua, who witnessed the excavation of the royal tomb in 1958.(xinhua)