Chinese archaeologists have unearthed some 30 beheaded skeletons
dating back more than 2,000 years in central China's Henan Province, a cradle of the Chinese
civilization.
The skeletons were obviously warriors, the tallest of whom was
at least 1.85 meters, said Sun Xinmin, head of the Henan Provincial
Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archeology.
The human remains were found scattered in a pit in the city of
Xinzheng, adjacent to a major battlefield where State Qin overthrew
State Han toward the end of the Warring States Period (475 to 221
BC), said Sun.
He and his peers are working hard to collect and preserve the
findings as an expressway linking the provincial capital Zhengzhou
will soon start to be built there.
Sun said the skeletons must have belonged to soldiers of State
Han and their heads were likely taken by the Qin warriors who
intended to receive a promotion based on the number of enemy troops
they killed.
Some of the skeletons still disclose evidence of being slashed
by by broadswords and many were burned, he said.
State Qin later united all the other smaller states then and
established China's first feudal dynasty, which lasted from 221 to
207 B.C..
Three of the skeletons were found crouching on the top of one
another and Sun suspected they had been buried alive before they
were beheaded.
He said this is the first such finding in China and is a graphic
reminder of the cruelty of war as it was fought approximately 2,000
years ago.
The copper coins spotted close to the skeletons also indicate
that the massacre occurred sometime before 221 BC.
"I'd say it was in 230 B.C., the year Yingzheng, the founding
emperor of imperial Qin Dynasty, conquered State Han," said Hao
Benxing, a researcher with the institute.
Yingzheng was known as the first man to unite the whole of China
but he is also known as a bloodthirsty and merciless ruler who
ordered the massacre of countless soldiers and civilians.
His kingdom, as well as the Qin Dynasty, had a promotion system
that inspired killing enemy soldiers, said Zhu Shaohou, a noted
professor from elite Henan University and specialist on the Chinese
history.
"I've been studying the ancient promotion system for half a
century but the beheaded skeletons were the first evidence ever
found to prove it," he acknowledged in an exclusive interview with
Xinhua.
"State Han was the first small kingdom conquered by State Qin
and the skeletons were buried some 30 km from State Han's capital.
So we have every reason to believe that the dead warriors were
battling for State Han and were beheaded by their foes," he
added.
As the war increasingly escalated and became more ruthless, Zhu
said that soldiers from State Qin had to annihilate three to five
people in order to get a promotion. "They were compelled to kill,
as it is said clearly in historical records that anyone who
hesitate and cowered during a battle or showed mercy to their
enemies would loss their lives themselves. The worst transgressions
could lead to a soldier's entire family being vanished."
Such a merciless rule later hindered Qin's development until his
famed prime minister Lu Buwei reformed the promotion system and
began to persuade defeated enemy soldiers to surrender and follow
Qin, he said.
(Xinhua News Agency April 20, 2006)
