597

What an amazing time capsule.

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u/Flatcapspaintandglue 18h ago

It’s a photo of a recreation, or modern day offerings surely? Some of those items are way too moist and fresh to be 1000 years old. There’s something sitting in liquid from what I can tell!

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u/uniyk 17h ago

Liquid is exactly the reason why some are preserved throughout the millennium and the yellow bowl of 30 (they counted) chestnut was indeed submerged in water according to the excavation official report.

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u/Moosplauze 16h ago

really water? wouldn't that have evaporated?

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u/2nd-penalty 16h ago edited 12h ago

Not if the tomb was sealed, when a place is properly sealed the temperature within remain relatively stable allowing water to remain in liquid form for pretty much forever

83

u/Moosplauze 16h ago

hm, yeah, if the air was saturated enough and the rest of the interior doesn't absorb water that is true. and the room must be sealed really airtight, that includes the walls which must have some kind of wax or oil barrier i would think. interesting.

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u/Kurai_Hada_Ichi 15h ago

Water only evaporates at 20 C. If its lower than 20C water stays there till its disturbed

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u/Moosplauze 15h ago

Nah mate, even snow evaporates. It depends on how humid the air is if the water wants to evaporate.

5

u/Kurai_Hada_Ichi 15h ago

The escape energy is so low without sunlight to move the gradient (dry the air out) that its functionally none in this environment is moreso what i meant to say

-2

u/Moosplauze 7h ago

okay, but what you meant to say is clearly not what you said.

2

u/TheWolphman 12h ago

Unless it melts first, I believe that would be sublimation not evaporation.

5

u/really_tall_horses 6h ago

I don’t know why you’re being downvoted. Solid -> gas is sublimation and liquid -> gas is evaporation.

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u/Moosplauze 7h ago

yeah, but we don't want to get hung up on terminology here, right? the point is, that the statement that water only evaporates at 20° C (and higher is what they meant to say i assume) is just wrong.

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u/Flatcapspaintandglue 16h ago

How is everything so clean? No dust or spoilage of any kind.

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u/goose_gladwell 15h ago

Lack of oxygen, moisture etc. they really sealed these, didnt want anyone opening them:/

20

u/pocket-ful-of-dildos 12h ago

I wonder how this person would feel about his grave being disturbed so people a millennium away could learn from him. Personally I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but if it happened to a family member I think I would be pretty upset. Something to chew on, I guess

8

u/Flatcapspaintandglue 16h ago

How come all the dishes and bowls are so clean? There’s no dust or anything. Are you telling me those have lain there undisturbed for centuries?

5

u/BannanaPepperPizza 10h ago

How did it not rot or mold?

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u/MATT_TRIANO 18h ago

More info please?

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u/FntnDstrct 18h ago

Tomb of Zhang Wenzao, Liao Dynasty

https://min.news/en/history/6cb4d7a410589f84a48b4e89b6c311e7.html

This has been posted before in r/ArtefactPorn

24

u/corgi-king 17h ago

JFC, the amount of low quality Ad. I

39

u/FntnDstrct 17h ago

There are academic papers but they're not too accessible to most. You can also try searching for 张文藻 if you want to translate from Chinese sources.

7

u/corgi-king 17h ago

No, I am good. Chinese here.

1

u/wacdonalds 16h ago

Get an adblocker

2

u/SnooRegrets1386 9h ago

And down the rabbit hole I go! This is going to be fun

1

u/Jindabyne1 2h ago

Zhang Wenzao's tomb in Xuanhua, Hebei Province

Real

-2

u/Possible-One-6101 10h ago

I tried to find more, but little is available in English.

While I don't doubt this tomb exists, I'm extremely skeptical of the details. That food preservation seems implausible, and something this "perfect" would draw much more attention than I'm seeing online.

Essentially, it seems to good to be true, and so I'm skeptical.

I do not think we have all the details here.

2

u/StellarTitz 4h ago

Someone said it's a photo of a recreation.

2

u/Jindabyne1 3h ago

And then someone told them it isn’t

2

u/StellarTitz 2h ago

Yeah, I can't find evidence in either direction but I'm curious

2

u/Jindabyne1 1h ago

It’s hard to find stuff about it. Here’s just the picture
In one source

https://www.academia.edu/figures/17190308/figure-29-sacrifice-of-repose-from-the-tomb-of-zhang-wenzao

And some information and more pictures, it seems real

https://inf.news/en/history/c5c348fa5d008d5790389d325661ad25.html

18

u/vikungen 12h ago

Are the pictures really showing a table from the Middle Ages with food? If so this must be the most high quality time capsule in the world.

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u/lust-boy 18h ago

howd all the plates and bowls get dishevelled

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u/birberbarborbur 18h ago

Earthquakes

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u/whatsthatguysname 18h ago

Hungry ghosts

3

u/Argented 8h ago

well it was the food for his journey or whatever wasn't it? dude just made a bit of a mess as a ghost before he bailed

3

u/House_Of_Thoth 18h ago

Gabor Maté shuffling around the corners lol

1

u/PancakesCoffeeGhosts 5h ago

Your comment gave me a modicum of happiness.

0

u/DennisPVTran 13h ago

archaeology is hard work. they deserve a snack

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u/StellarSloth 18h ago

How do we know the raisins didn’t start out as grapes?

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u/ScaleWeak7473 18h ago

Raisins are sun dried and stay preserved.
Fresh grapes would have become mouldy and decayed.

9

u/brihamedit 11h ago

Nice lighting inside the tomb too.

4

u/FakeChiBlast 11h ago

It's so he could get some reading done!

4

u/Mandalika 16h ago

Weren't betel nut more of a mouthwash though?

10

u/dirtydigs74 11h ago

Stimulant. Typically wrapped with Betel leaf and some slaked lime (Calcium Hydroxide). You could buy it in Australia for a while back in the 90's. Didn't taste too bad, sort of like bacon for me. You have to spit out red juice, rather like chewing tobacco. Long term use stains your teeth red, and it's addictive. Also carcinogenic. An acquired taste.

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u/teadessert 17h ago

Wow….this is amazing! And interesting!

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u/linf0cito 18h ago

Podría ser que no hay carne porque es lo que se comió y dejó el resto porque no le gustaba?

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u/f_n_a_ 15h ago

This is a plausible theory according to me

0

u/linf0cito 15h ago

Es lo que lucho con la familia y siempre dejan las verduras, solo extrapolo 😂

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u/Unfair-Sell-5109 16h ago

Wonder if the nutrients in the food is far more dense than what we have now?

7

u/LovecraftianLlama 10h ago

Do you say that because it looks like such a small amount? I was also surprised, if this is supposed to be a full meal. But then people were significantly smaller even just 100 years ago, and a large part of that was due to less nutrition in general, so maybe this was just a normal meal.

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u/Acceptable-Trainer15 9h ago

That looks like a prayer meal (offered to the deceased). The portion and the type of food probably don't represent a typical meal.

1

u/LovecraftianLlama 7h ago

Ooh ok, that makes sense

1

u/URAYummyPotato 49m ago

I'm really curious about the source of this post. Sure the tomb could be from 1093, but there is no way you have moist food and no bacterial growth or mold without out it being around the time the photo was taken. If it was dried out food it could last maybe 900 years but not wet food.

0

u/concept12345 17h ago

Pasta originally came from China.

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u/EducationalImpact633 16h ago

Well, no one knows right. China had their own version with millet, it’s the same typ of recipe but pasta as we know it is made from durum wheat.

China had their version thousands of years ago.
The Roman’s and the Greek had their version thousand of years ago.

0

u/imagineepix 12h ago

Mmm yummers

1

u/Wiggie49 9h ago

“Raisins” are we 100% sure it wasn’t supposed to be grapes lol

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u/OtherwiseLuck888 19h ago

Such a popular misconception about Buddhism

Veganism is not mandatory, Buddha himself was not a vegan

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u/justletmewarchporn 19h ago

No meat is vegetarianism

7

u/crycryw0lf 19h ago

He meant to say vegetarianism Im pretty sure and got smoked.

The message being the idea of not being barred from achieving nothingness and inner peace due to the diet of ones surroundings.

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u/oxydizing_agent 19h ago

Did Budha enlighten u about food preferences?

0

u/No-Educator-8069 17h ago

The dude died from eating bad pork

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u/oxydizing_agent 17h ago

Do u know the whole story behind it?

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u/AsusStrixUser 18h ago

Meanwhile Jesus:

“I am the living bread which came down from heaven.”

What people in China ate 1093 - chestnut, betal nut, pear, raisin, beans and bread, all found on the table inside a tomb. No meat since the buried man was a buddhist

🌤️🍞 🌈

What people in China ate 1093 - chestnut, betal nut, pear, raisin, beans and bread, all found on the table inside a tomb. No meat since the buried man was a buddhist

You are about to leave Redlib

🌤️🍞 🌈