What an unappetizing post, Kenneth, especially the last part. I want to puke and laugh after reading it, but I'm afraid I'll do both, to very unpleasant results. 
So there's no embalming process like Egyptian mummies? What kept it so fresh, only to have it decay after exposure?
The preserved corpse of the Marquis of Xi (West Han) was due to the sealed enviroment of the tomb....pure chance. There is no reason to assume that the people burying her even knew the Han Marquis would not decay. The husband and son buried beside were only scraps of bone but in rare circumstances a seal enviroment, deep burial allows sealing in and constant temperature and humidity so that only the onset of decay occurs...bacteria largely break down the body so in enviroments of extreme dry, cold or without oxegen then bodies survive.
This Ming woman will be the same, although more recent. The Han Marquis' tomb had meat on plate and even pears on the plates only a bit withered....yet people dont claim the fruit was 'mummified'. Neither was the Marquis. There are claims that some secret medicine did this preservation yet it is know the Han did not mummify since they believed jade was what prevents decay (erroneously).
In the same way the MIng womans clothes were preserved, and likely organic wooden and textiles in the tomb also. Just like many preserved items once the tomb is opened the decay that was postponed begins.
Only if the body is quickly sealed away in a controlled enviroment can dacy be halted...it isnt therefore in my understanding a mummy at all. The Xinjiang mummies are true mummies, yet such preserved corpses in China proper are only due to tomb conditions....and reversible sadly.
I do not believe or assume this woman was embalmed at all. I dount the Chinese would go for the treatment at the time (and they probably dont now either at a geuss)....yet by the 1860's extracting of blood and embalming in a more modern sense occured during the civil war to allow bodies to be bought home. Of course all sorts of treatments occured through history. I dont believe this body was embalmed but I just mention it becuase at this time such practices had started to become more common in the US and later Britian.
Dr. Charles Brown was called to the White House to embalm Lincoln's body. The preservation of Lincoln's corpse promoted this new commercial process, revolutionizing American funeral practices.
Embalming was an exotic procedure in the mid-nineteenth century, primarily known as an ancient Egyptian custom. American doctors began embalming casualties on Civil War battlefields for shipment to distant family burial grounds, using a technique patented by Dr. Brown. The Chicago Tribune reported in amazement that "the Doctor claims to be able absolutely to arrest the process of dissolution."
http://www.chicagohs...rn/remains5.htmIf we dug up a few graves from 100 years ago in modern times we might find many preserved corpses.
Kind of pointless I think...might as well feed some worms and be useful after all.
If I am not mistaken old Abe Lincoln did a tour of the country as a corpse....but I digress...the Ming woman is likely a chance preservation and perhaps a wasted chance at that.
