In November 2001, during the construction of the new campus of Xi’an University of Technology, the tomb of Princess Li Shui (Li Qi) – the 5th generation descendant of Tang Dynasty emperor Li Yuan was discovered. . This is considered the mausoleum with the most historical value in China.

During the excavation of the tomb, the headdress of this young princess (who died at the age of 25) was considered a priceless artifact, providing a comprehensive view of the luxurious life of royal women. Road.

At the time of excavation, the good news was that this tomb had not been stolen for thousands of years, remained intact and had many richly excavated artifacts, including bronze, silver, lacquer, iron, and ivory. elephants and crafts made of other materials.

Experts believe that the decorations on this princess hat were displaced from their original positions when they were excavated, especially those made of metal materials such as gold, silver, copper, iron and other objects. decorative materials such as turquoise, rubies, amber, pearls, agate, shells, ivory and colored glass. The hat’s components were seriously misplaced.

The decorations on this unique hat consist of a large number of different microscopic materials, the smallest of which is only about 2mm in diameter. At that time, archaeologists all realized that removing the hat from the grave would cause great difficulty in restoring the hat’s shape. Therefore, they then chose the method of removing it by extracting the plaster bag.

It is known that the steps of protecting and cleaning the hat are all done under a microscope in the laboratory. Before opening the plaster bag, experts first use X-ray scanning to check, and at the same time come up with a protection and repair plan based on the X-ray film. After determining the plan, They opened the plaster bag and took out the small parts under a microscope, cleaned them, took pictures and built a 3D model. The fragile decorative parts are reinforced. At least 370 small decorative pieces were removed from this golden headdress. Experts also had to rely on a lot of historical documents about the lives of women in the Tang Dynasty to reconstruct this lavish hat. It took them about 3 years to complete the work and made the audience truly shocked to learn that Tang Dynasty women had such a royal life.