Two ancient skeletons, each missing a part of the lower leg, recovered from graves in China were of elite individuals whose legs were amputated as punishment around 2,500 years ago, during the Eastern Zhou dynasty, a new study suggests.
The discovery provides a rare glimpse into the brutal punishment method, called “yue,” from ancient China, the researchers said.
“Such discoveries, along with some previous findings, reflect the cruelty of the penal system in early China,” study senior author Qian Wang, a professor of biomedical sciences at the Texas A&M University School of Dentistry, told Live Science in an email.
However, not everyone agrees that these men were punished with yue, saying that they could have received amputations for other reasons.
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