{"id":1596,"date":"2024-04-04T09:14:30","date_gmt":"2024-04-04T09:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/04\/chinese-researchers-use-dna-to-reconstruct-emperor-wus-face-as-study-sheds-light-on-his-death\/"},"modified":"2024-04-04T09:14:30","modified_gmt":"2024-04-04T09:14:30","slug":"chinese-researchers-use-dna-to-reconstruct-emperor-wus-face-as-study-sheds-light-on-his-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/04\/chinese-researchers-use-dna-to-reconstruct-emperor-wus-face-as-study-sheds-light-on-his-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese researchers use DNA to reconstruct Emperor Wu\u2019s face as study sheds light on his death"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Researchers have used DNA to reconstruct the face of a Chinese emperor and shed light on what might have caused his death.<\/p>\n

Emperor Wu was a ruler of the Northern Zhou dynasty in ancient China, reigning from 560 AD until 578, defeating the Northern Qi dynasty and unifying the northern part of the country.<\/p>\n

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The emperor belonged to a rarely-studied nomadic group called the Xianbei that lived in modern-day Mongolia and northern and northeastern China.<\/p>\n

Almost 30 years after his tomb was discovered in northwestern China, researchers at Shanghai’s Fudan University used DNA and his nearly-complete skull to reconstruct his face in 3D.<\/p>\n

It shows the emperor had brown eyes, black hair and “dark to intermediate” skin. Researchers said the emperor “possessed a typical East or Northeast Asian appearance”.<\/p>\n

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Pianpian Wei, the paper’s co-corresponding author at Fudan University, said: “Our work brought historical figures to life.<\/p>\n

“Previously people had to rely on historical records or murals to picture what ancient people looked like.<\/p>\n

“We are able to reveal the appearance of the Xianbei people directly.”<\/p>\n

Emperor Wu died aged 36 and his son also died young, both for no obvious reason.<\/p>\n

Some archaeologists thought Wu died from illness, while others argued he was poisoned by his rivals.<\/p>\n

The researchers at Fudan, however, found he was at increased risk for a stroke.<\/p>\n

It’s a finding that is backed up by historical records describing him as having aphasia (a language disorder often caused by stroke), drooping eyelids and an abnormal way of walking.<\/p>\n

There was not enough evidence to confirm a stroke as the cause of his death, but it might have been a factor.<\/p>\n

The research is published in the journal Current Biology.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on sky.com<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Researchers have used DNA to reconstruct the face of a Chinese emperor and shed light…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1597,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}