Author: Stephanie Libardi

In 1972, near Changsha, the current capital of the Chinese province of Hunan, a funerary cloth in painted silk, known as the “funerary cloth of the Marquise of Dai”, was found. It is an extraordinary artifact that symbolically depicts the conception of the afterlife and the journey of the soul after the death of the first Han period (206 BC-220 AD) and which was considered fundamental to guide the soul of the deceased in its ascent to Heaven.