March
29
/ 2024
Taking advantage of extraordinary advances in the study of ancient DNA, researchers from Fudan and Xiamen Universities in China completed a detailed facial reconstruction of a Chinese emperor who ruled nearly 1,500 years ago. The DNA sample used to create the amazingly lifelike image was extracted from the skeletal remains of an individual known simply as Emperor Wu, who came from China’s Northern Zhou dynasty and served as sovereign from 560 to 578 AD. In a new article just published in the journal Current Biology, the archaeologists, anthropologists and genetic scientists involved in the facial reconstruction project introduce the results of their handiwork, which shows Emperor Wu as he would have looked in his mid-30s. This would have been his
