Human sacrifice: Victims killed in bloody rituals in China 3,000 years ago were war captives
Ancient sacrificial victims discovered at the Chinese archaeological site of Yinxu, 500 km south of Beijing, were probably kept as war captives before they were killed, archaeologists have said.
Yinxu was the capital of the late Shang Dynasty (1300-1046 BCE), and is now a significant archaeological site, which testifies to the development of a rich Chinese culture during the early Bronze Age.
But there is also a dark side to the period - past excavations at Yinxu have indeed revealed that ritual human and animal sacrifices were common during the Shang dynasty.
Many sacrificial pits have been identified and it is believed that in the space of just 200 years, thousands of people were sacrificed. Read more.
