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29-542: The tombs were made of large cypress planks. The outside of the tombs were layered with white clay and charcoal . White clay layering originated with Chu burials, while charcoal layering was practiced during the early western Han dynasty in the Changsha area. The tombs contained nested lacquered coffins, a Chu burial custom. The tombs also followed the burial practices dictated by Emperor Wen of Han , containing no jade or precious metals. The eastern tomb, Tomb no. 1, contained

58-592: A complete meal including soup, rice and meat skewers on a lacquer set. Researchers found honeydew melon seeds in her stomach, implying consumption right before death. She outlived the occupants of the other two tombs. Xin Zhui's tomb was by far the best preserved of the three. A complete cosmetic set, lacquered pieces and finely woven silk garments with paintings are almost perfectly preserved. Her coffins were painted according to Chu customs and beliefs, with whirling clouds interwoven with mystical animals and dragons. The corpse

87-755: A fragmented allopatric pattern of distribution. This type of distribution results in disproportionate local abundance with most species restricted to small neighboring populations. All plants in the genus Cupressus , including New World Cupressus (now Callitropsis ), are extremely allergenic, and have an OPALS allergy scale rating of 10. In warm, Mediterranean climates, these plants release large quantities of pollen for approximately seven months each year. New World Species : Mawangdui Silk Texts The Mawangdui Silk Texts ( traditional Chinese : 馬王堆帛書 ; simplified Chinese : 马王堆帛书 ; pinyin : Mǎwángduī Bóshū ) are Chinese philosophical and medical works written on silk which were discovered at

116-534: A likely split in the genus in the future. The Old World cypresses tend to have cones with more scales (8–14 scales, rarely 6 in C. funebris ), each scale with a short broad ridge, not a spike. C. sempervirens is the type species of the genus, defining the name Cupressus . They are more closely related to Juniperus than to the New World species, with the exception of the Vietnamese golden cypress , which

145-418: Is hard to discern due to extensive cultivation. A few species are grown for their timber, which can be very durable. The fast-growing hybrid Leyland cypress ( Cupressus × leylandii ), much used in gardens, draws one of its parents from this genus ( Cupressus macrocarpa , Monterey cypress); the other parent, Callitropsis nootkatensis (Nootka cypress), is also sometimes classified in this genus, or else in

174-635: Is more closely related to New World species. The New World cypresses tend to have cones with fewer scales (4–8 scales, rarely more in C. macrocarpa ), each scale with an often prominent narrow spike. Recent genetic evidence shows they are less closely related to the Old World cypresses than previously thought, being more closely related to Xanthocyparis than to the rest of Cupressus . These species have recently been transferred to Hesperocyparis and Callitropsis . New World species are found in marginal habitats with xeric soils, and therefore exhibit

203-512: Is one of several genera of evergreen conifers within the family Cupressaceae that have the common name cypress ; for the others, see cypress . It is considered a polyphyletic group. Based on genetic and morphological analysis, the genus Cupressus is found in the subfamily Cupressoideae . The common name "cypress" comes via the Old French cipres from the Latin cyparissus , which

232-664: Is the latinisation of the Greek κυπάρισσος ( kypárissos ). Cypress are evergreen trees or large shrubs , growing to 5–40 m (16–131 ft) tall. The leaves are scale-like, 2–6 mm long, arranged in opposite decussate pairs, and persist for three to five years. On young plants up to two years old, the leaves are needle-like and 5–15 mm long. The cones are 8–40 mm long, globose or ovoid with 4 to 14 scales arranged in opposite decussate pairs; they are mature in 18–24 months from pollination . The seeds are small, 4–7 mm long, with two narrow wings, one along each side of

261-546: Is the underworld, with two giant sea serpents intertwined. The contents of Tomb 2 had been destroyed or removed by robbers. An excavation report has been published in Chinese; there has not been an English printing yet. Tomb 3 contained a silk name banner (similar to that of tomb 1) and three maps drawn on silk: a topographic map, a military map and a prefecture map. The maps display the Hunan , Guangdong and Guangxi region and depict

290-623: The I Ching and Tao Te Ching are hundreds of years earlier than those known before. The tomb also contained a rich collection of Huang-Lao Taoist texts, as well a copy of the Zhan Guo Ce . The tomb also contained various medical texts, including depictions of daoyin ( qigong ) exercises, as well as a historical text, the Chunqiu shiyu . 28°12′31″N 113°01′18″E  /  28.20861°N 113.02167°E  / 28.20861; 113.02167 Cupressus See text Cupressus

319-655: The Mawangdui site in Changsha , Hunan , in 1973. They include some of the earliest attested manuscripts of existing texts (such as the I Ching ), two copies of the Tao Te Ching , a copy of Zhan Guo Ce , works by Gan De and Shi Shen , and previously unknown medical texts such as Wushi'er Bingfang ( Prescriptions for Fifty-Two Ailments ). Scholars arranged them into 28 types of silk books. Their approximately 120,000 words cover military strategy, mathematics, cartography, and

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348-633: The Northern Hemisphere, including northwest Africa, the Middle East, the Himalayas, southern China and northern Vietnam. As with other conifers , extensive cultivation has led to a wide variety of forms, sizes and colours, that are grown in parks and gardens throughout the world. Many species of cypress are grown as decorative trees in parks and, in Asia, around temples; in some areas, the native distribution

377-1289: The Old World members. A 2021 molecular study found Cupressus to be the sister genus to Juniperus , whereas the western members (classified in Callitropsis and Hesperocyparis ) were found to be sister to Xanthocyparis . Juniperus C. pendula Thunberg C. tonkinensis Silba C. sempervirens von Linné C. atlantica Gaussen C. dupreziana Camus C. chengiana Hu C. duclouxiana Hickel C. gigantea Cheng & Fu C. torulosa Don ex Lambert C. cashmeriana Royle ex Carrière C. austrotibetica Silba C. corneyana Knight & Perry ex Carrière C. vietnamensis (Farjon & Nguyên 2002) Silba C. nootkatensis Don C. bakeri Jepson C. macnabiana Murray C. goveniana Go C. macrocarpa Hartweg ex Gordon C. sargentii Jepson C. glabra Sudworth C. arizonica Greene C. guadalupensis Watson C. montana Wiggins C. forbesii Jepson C. lusitanica Miller C. stephensonii Wolf The number of species recognised within this genus varies sharply, from 16 to 25 or more according to

406-608: The T-shaped painted silk garment, the uppermost horizontal section of the T represents heaven. The bottom of the vertical section of the T represents the underworld. The middle (the top of the vertical) represents earth. In heaven we can see Chinese deities such as Nuwa and Chang'e , as well as Daoist symbols such as cranes (representing immortality). Between heaven and earth we can see heavenly messengers sent to bring Lady Dai to heaven. Underneath this are Lady Dai's family offering sacrifices to help her journey to heaven. Beneath them

435-415: The authority followed, because most populations are small and isolated, and whether they should be accorded specific , subspecific or varietal rank is difficult to ascertain. Current tendencies are to reduce the number of recognised species; when a narrow species concept is adopted, the varieties indented in the list below may also be accepted as distinct species. See also the New World species (below) for

464-449: The boy into a plant. The association with mourning continued in Roman times, up to the present day, also for a practical reason: the roots of the cypress are straight into the ground, and expand slightly laterally, not damaging the burials. There has long been significant uncertainty about the New World members of Cupressus , with several studies recovering them as forming a distinct clade from

493-504: The chancellor of the Kingdom of Changsha , an imperial fiefdom of Han. This tomb had been plundered several times by grave robbers. Tomb 3 was directly south of Tomb 1, and contained the tomb of a man in his thirties who died in 168 BC. The occupant is believed to have been a relative of Li Cang and his wife. This tomb contained a rich trove of military, medical, and astronomical manuscripts written on silk. Held in particularly high regard are

522-419: The characters used in later traditional versions. Many characters are formed by combining two simpler characters: one indicating a general category of meaning, and the other to guide pronunciation. Where the traditional texts have both components, the silk texts frequently give only the phonetic half of the character. There are several hypotheses to explain this: In addition to partial characters mentioned above,

551-500: The earlier text, although both may be derived from the same parent text. Both Mawangdui texts place the de section (chapters 38–81) before the dao section (chapters 1–37), whereas the received text places the dao section first. D. C. Lau and Robert G. Henricks have made new translations of the Tao Te Ching based on the silk text, largely ignoring the received texts, although Henricks' translation compares received versions with

580-560: The fifth century AD. However, in some important aspects they differ noticeably from the received texts known before their discovery. Most received versions of the Tao Te Ching are in substantial agreement. Occasionally two versions will have a homonym , and a third text with a character which is a synonym for one of the first two characters is useful. There are two Mawangdui Laozi texts, namely A (甲; written in earlier small seal script ) and B (乙; written in later clerical script ). Texts A and B were copied at different times, with A being

609-407: The lacquered wine-bowls and cosmetic boxes, showcasing the regional lacquerware industry's craftsmanship. Among the most famous artifacts from Mawangdui are the silk funeral banners. These T-shaped banners were draped on the coffin of Tomb 1. The banners depict the Chinese concepts of the cosmos and the afterlife at the time of the western Han dynasty. A silk banner of similar style and function

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638-589: The political boundary between the Han dynasty and Nanyue . At the time of discovery, these were the oldest maps yet discovered in China, until 1986 when Qin State maps dating to the 4th century BC were found. Tomb 3 contained a wealth of classical texts . The tomb contained texts on astronomy, which accurately depicted the planetary orbits for Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Saturn and described various comets. The Mawangdui texts of

667-434: The remains of a woman in her fifties (Lady Dai, personal name Xin Zhui ). Her mummified body was so well-preserved that researchers were able to perform an autopsy on her body, which showed that she probably died of a heart attack . Specifically, her diet was too rich in sugars and meats, and she suffered from arterial-coronary problems. Buried with her were skeletons of various food-animals, jujubes, lotus soup, grains and

696-402: The seed. Many of the species are adapted to forest fires, holding their seeds for many years in closed cones until the parent trees are killed by a fire; the seeds are then released to colonise the bare, burnt ground. In other species, the cones open at maturity to release the seeds. As currently treated, these cypresses are native to scattered localities in mainly warm temperate regions in

725-571: The separate genus Xanthocyparis , but in the past more usually in Chamaecyparis . It was believed in the Hellenic culture that the cypress tree was sacred to the gods and it is now used as an emblem of grief. The name of the genus comes from Cyparissos , a young man loved by Apollo , very attached to a deer which he ended up killing by mistake during a hunting trip. To ease the pain Apollo transformed

754-491: The six classical arts: ritual, music, archery, horsemanship, writing, and arithmetic. The texts were buried in tomb number three at Mawangdui (which was sealed in 168 BC), and were hidden until their late-20th-century discovery. Some were previously known only by title, and others are previously unknown commentaries on the I Ching . In general, they follow the same sequence as the received versions, which were passed down by copying and recopying texts collected and collated during

783-644: The text found in the tomb. In 1990, sinologist Victor H. Mair translated the Ma-wang-tui version; Mair considered this earliest-known version (by 500 years) more authentic than the most commonly translated texts. The two silk books are part of the Cultural Relics from the Mawangdui Tombs collection at the Hunan Provincial Museum . The Chinese characters in the silk texts are often only fragments of

812-480: Was bound tightly in layers of silk cloth and covered with a wonderfully painted T-shaped tapestry depicting the netherworld, earth and heavens with Chinese mythological characters as well as Xin Zhui. There was also a silk painting showing a variety of exercises that researchers have called the forerunner of tai ji . The western tomb, Tomb no. 2, was the burial site of the first Marquis of Dai, Li Cang ( 利蒼 ). He died in 186 BC. The Han dynasty had appointed Li Cang as

841-503: Was found in Tomb 3. The T-shaped silk funeral banner in the tomb of the Marquise (Tomb 1) is called the "name banner" with the written name of the deceased replaced with a portrait. We know the name because the tomb's original inventory is still intact, and this is what it is called on the inventory. The Marquise was buried in four coffins; the silk banner drapes the innermost of the coffins. On

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