The 50th Anniversary of the Mawangdui Han Tombs The Release and Controversy of Lady Xin Zhui's Digital Image

On June 13th, TapTechNews reported that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the archaeological excavation of the Mawangdui Han Tombs. On May 18th, International Museum Day, the Hunan Museum publicly released the 3D digital human image of Lady Xin Zhui for the first time.

However, the image was questioned by some netizens. The face of Lady Xin Zhui, especially the nose part, is very similar to that of Yuan Zhongbiao, the Chinese craniofacial restoration expert who led the project, and they suspected that the expert restored the face of Lady Xin Zhui according to his own face.

On the morning of June 11th, Yu Yanjiao, the director of the Mawangdui Han Tombs and Collections Research and Exhibition Center of the Hunan Museum, clarified to Zonglan News: Attention has been paid to the online discussion, and there is absolutely no connection between the digital human image of Lady Xin Zhui and the restoration expert's face.

TapTechNews found that the Mawangdui Han Tombs are the tombs of Li Cang, the prime minister of the Changsha Kingdom in the Western Han Dynasty, and his family. It is one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in the 20th century. The 3D digital person Xin Zhui restored by AI this time is the wife of Li Cang, the prime minister of Changsha Kingdom. She was unearthed in 1972 in Mawangdui Tomb No. 1 beside the Liuyang River in the eastern suburbs of Changsha City. Her remains are the wet corpse with the longest discovered preservation time in the world, and even has the title of The Oriental Sleeping Beauty.

When the Hunan Museum released the digital human image of Lady Xin Zhui on May 18th, it was introduced that:

The 3D digital human image of Lady Xin Zhui is the full-body sitting version at the age of about 35 and the head image at around 50 years old. Based on the X-ray film of the head of Lady Xin Zhui when it was unearthed from the Mawangdui Han Tombs in the 1970s as the main basis, and then through X-ray films, on-site observation, and model measurement to calculate the structure and shape of the female corpse's skull and the proportional relationship of the facial features, analyze the structural characteristics of the female corpse's skull, and combine modern technology to construct the data model of the female corpse's skull, restoring its appearance to the greatest extent.

Currently, the digital human project of Lady Xin Zhui has only restored the facial image of Lady Xin Zhui at around 50 and 35 years old, and the details such as her hair ornaments, head ornaments, and costumes are still being further deepened. In the next stage of the project, the proposed AI intelligent agent of Lady Xin Zhui can conduct multiple rounds and long-cycle memory and conversational interaction.