Researchers say they have found skeleton of ancient Chinese criminal who had her foot cut off almost 3,000 years ago
- Amputation, or ‘yue’, was one of the five criminal punishments used in ancient China
- Modern scientific analysis has ruled out a medical reason for the amputation and say the woman could be the oldest known victim of the practice
Chinese researchers have identified what they believe is the earliest known example of someone’s foot being cut off as a punishment, based on analysis of a skeleton found in a tomb in the northwest of the country.
The team from Peking University said a biomedical examination of the remains of the woman ruled out medical or other reasons for the amputation and said the victim had lived for at least five years after the punishment had been carried out.
Cutting off one or both feet, a practice known as yue, was one of the five punishments of ancient China – a particularly draconian system that was in place for almost a thousand years until around 200BC.
There is plenty of evidence for the practice in historical records and artwork.
In the oldest written Chinese records, the Shang dynasty’s (c1600-1050BC) oracle bone inscriptions, some of the images look like a foot being cut off with a saw, the initial form of the character for yue.
Engravings on bronze vessels from the Western Zhou era – from around 1046BC to 771BC – include images of people missing one or both legs acting as gatekeepers, a practice that is also mentioned in literature.
