April
10
/ 2026
About 1,500 years ago, in what is now South Korea, a gruesome practice known as ‘sunjang’ dictated that servants, retainers, and even entire families be killed and buried alongside local royalty. A groundbreaking new genetic study of dozens of ancient skeletons has now revealed the existence of a special "sacrificial caste" of people whose grim duty was passed down through generations to serve the elite in the afterlife. The study, published in the journal Science Advances, analyzed genome-wide data from 78 individuals excavated from the Imdang-Joyeong burial complex in Gyeongsan, South Korea. These tombs date back to the 4th and 6th centuries AD, a time when the powerful Silla Kingdom was consolidating its control over the Korean Peninsula. The findings
