One of the most celebrated archaeological discoveries relating to daoyin is referred to by modern authors as Daoyin tu, a drawing of forty-four colour illustrations of human figures performing daoyin exercises.
Mawangdui Daoyin tu (Source: Mawangdui hanmu boshu 馬王堆漢墓帛書, 1985)
Daoyin tu was unearthed in 1973 at Mawangdui Han tomb No. 3 near Changsha 長沙 in Hunan province, southern China, along with many other texts, such as Wushier bingfang 五十二病方 (Recipes for Fifty-two Ailments), Yangsheng fang 養生方(Recipes for Nurturing Life) and Shiwen 十問(Ten Questions). It was discovered on a silk manuscript, being one of the burial objects belonging to the son of a local lord who died in 168 BCE at around the age of thirty. The silk manuscript, measuring approximately 50 cm wide and 110 cm long, consists of two texts, twenty ruled blank columns, and the Daoyin tu. Daoyin tu takes up more than two thirds of the entire manuscript. The two texts were untitled but were later named by the excavators as ‘Quegu shiqi 卻穀食氣 (Eliminating Grain and Eating Qi)’ and ‘Yin Yang shiyi mai jiujing yiben 陰陽十一脈灸經乙本 (Cauterisation Canon of the Eleven Yin and Yang Vessels, ed. B)’. The blank columns suggest that more writings were intended to be included.
A reconstruction of Daoyin tu has been made available, although the process has inevitably involved some guesswork. In this reconstruction, we can see forty-four figures, each 9 to 12 cm tall, arranged in four horizontal rows with eleven figures in each row:
Reconstructed Daoyin tu (Source: Wellcome images)