Today, across social media, we are bombarded by images of whatever people are up to day and night, and across the world. Political leaders like to project positive images of themselves using these sites – so we know what they look like.
It is always part of our curiosity that we wonder what people back many centuries ago looked like before there were reliable ways to record their images accurately. That has changed with the use of DNA extraction of remains and technology to reproduce the faces of ancient people.
Emperor Wu was a ruler of the Northern Zhou dynasty in ancient China. Under his reign from AD 560 to AD 578, Emperor Wu built a strong military and unified the northern part of ancient China after defeating the Northern Qi dynasty.
Emperor Wu was ethnically Xianbei, an ancient nomadic group that lived in what is today Mongolia and northern and northeastern China. He died at the age of 36.
In 1996, archaeologists discovered Emperor Wu’s tomb in northwestern China, where they found his bones, including a nearly complete skull. With the development of ancient DNA research in recent years, Shaoqing Wen and his team at Fudan University in Shanghai managed to recover over 1 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on his DNA, some of which contained information about the colour of Emperor Wu’s skin and hair. Combined with Emperor Wu’s skull, the team reconstructed his face in 3D. The result shows Emperor Wu had brown eyes, black hair, and dark to intermediate skin, and his facial features were similar to those of present-day Northern and Eastern Asians.
Shaoqing Wen explained:
“Some scholars said the Xianbei had ‘exotic’ looks, such as thick beard, high nose bridge, and yellow hair. Our analysis shows Emperor Wu had typical East or Northeast Asian facial characteristics.”
Emperor Wu died at the age of 36, and his son also died at a young age with no clear reason. Some archaeologists say Emperor Wu died of illness, while others argue the emperor was poisoned by his rivals. By analysing Emperor Wu’s DNA, researchers found that the emperor was at an increased risk for stroke, which might have contributed to his death. The finding aligns with historical records that described the emperor as having aphasia, drooping eyelids, and an abnormal gait—potential symptoms of a stroke.
The genetic analysis shows the Xianbei people intermarried with ethnically Han Chinese when they migrated southward into northern China.
“This is an important piece of information for understanding how ancient people spread in Eurasia and how they integrated with local people,” Wen says.
Next, the team plans to study the people who lived in ancient Chang’an city in northwestern China by studying their ancient DNA. Chang’an was the capital city of many Chinese empires over thousands of years and the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, an important Eurasian trade network from the second century BC until the 15th century. The researchers hope that the DNA analysis can reveal more information about how people migrated and exchanged cultures in ancient China.
Click on this link to access “Ancient genome of the Chinese emperor Wu of Northern Zhou” published in Cell, Current Biology