See The Face of Emperor Wu, a Sixth-Century Chinese Ruler Brought to Life with DNA Analysis

In 1996, a team of archaeologists discovered the tomb of Emperor Wu—the sixth-century ruler who reigned over the Northern Zhou dynasty for two decades during the country’s dark ages—in northwestern China. Emperor Wu, credited with unifying northern China, belonged to a little-studied nomadic ethnic group called the Xianbei.

At his grave, the scientists were surprised to find the emperor’s 1,500-year-old remains well preserved, including a nearly complete skull and several of his bones. And now, nearly 30 years later, researchers have used these ancient DNA samples to construct, for the first time, a digital rendering of Emperor Wu’s face—a breakthrough that sheds new light on the ruler’s appearance, his mysterious death at the age of 36, and the region’s ethnic history.

“Some scholars said the Xianbei had ‘exotic’ looks, such as thick beard, high nose bridge, and yellow hair,” says Shaoqing Wen, an anthropologist at Fudan University in Shanghai and a coauthor of the study, published this week in Current Biology, in a statement. “Our analysis shows Emperor Wu had typical East or Northeast Asian facial characteristics.”

A single nucleotide base in a sequence of DNA is represented by one of four letters: A, C, T or G. From the emperor’s bones, Shaoqing Wen and his team were able to recover and analyze more than one million single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which are single-letter substitutions of individual nucleotides. SNPs are often found in between genes and signal common types of genetic commonalities among particular groups of related people.

In this case, the SNPs contained information about Emperor Wu’s hair (black), eyes (brown), and skin (described as “dark to intermediate” in color). Combined with the skull that was found at his tomb, the team was able to render a digital reconstruction of the ruler’s face.

“The study … offers intriguing insights into the historical figure of Emperor Wu, with the facial approximation presented appearing convincingly realistic,” Tobias Houlton, a physical anthropologist and forensic image specialist at the University of Dundee in Scotland, who was not involved in the study, tells CNN’s Katie Hunt.

“Our work brought historical figures to life,” Pianpian Wei, a co-author of the study and a physical anthropologist at Fudan University, said in the statement. “Previously, people had to rely on historical records or murals to picture what ancient people looked like. We are able to reveal the appearance of the Xianbei people directly.”

Further genetic analysis also offers clues into the emperor’s death in 578 C.E. Previous theories about his cause of death had included illness or an enemy’s poisoning, but the researchers found that Wu was susceptible to stroke. Historical records had previously described Wu as having aphasia, drooping eyelids and an abnormal gait—all symptoms of a stroke.

Outside researchers praised the team’s genetic analysis for its insight into China’s ethnic history. Their study of Wu’s DNA suggests that the Xianbei mixed ethnically with Han Chinese peoples when the former migrated south over time.

“I think it is important to understand the elite group he belonged to, which arose as a merger of Xianbei and local Han elite groups, rather than himself,” Jeong Hoongwon, a geneticist at Seoul National University who was not involved in the study, tells CNN. “This group has been rarely studied in genetics and this study provides one of the first such cases.”

The team plans to expand on this research by analyzing DNA from the ancient city of Chang’an, also in northwestern China. For hundreds of years, until the 15th century, Chang’an represented the eastern end of the Silk Road, the trade route that connected Europe with Asia. They hope to make new discoveries about the road’s impact on migration and cultural exchanges.

Christian Thorsberg | READ MORE

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.