1,300-year-old murder victim found in China was not a grave robber
The remains of an ancient 25-year-old man who was discovered in China in a shaft leading to an ancient tomb was not trying to rob it — he was murdered, archaeologists have found.
When the body was first discovered around 2010, above an ancient tomb that was built 700 years before he was killed, scientists wondered whether the victim was a grave-robber who had died while attempting to raid the tomb. But a new study reveals he was likely murdered, and whoever murdered the man seems to have hidden his remains in a looters’ shaft above the tomb in an attempt to conceal the crime.
In the new study, researchers used radiocarbon dating to show that the murdered man lived during the seventh century, whereas the people whose bodies were buried in the tomb date back around 2,000 years. They also found injuries suggesting he was slashed and cut numerous times on his front and back, and was therefore likely a murder victim. Read more.
