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The Well-Dressed Dead

By JARRETT A. LOBELL

January/February 2014

Trenches12-3A well-preserved mummy identified as a government official from the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912)—China’s last imperial dynasty before the creation of the Republic of China—has been unearthed from a construction site in Xiangcheng City in central China’s Henan Province. Though the Chinese did not deliberately preserve their dead as the ancient Egyptians did, environmental conditions have naturally preserved many centuries- and even millennia-old bodies there in remarkable condition, often with clothing, footwear, hair, and even skin intact.