Emily Chan
About 3,000 years ago, a Chinese woman had her foot cut off. The amputation was conducted as punishment for committing a crime rather than for a medical condition. It is a rare example of yue, an ancient Chinese punishment.
In 2022, a study of her bones showed no signs of disease that would’ve made an amputation necessary.
The procedure also appeared to have been performed in a rough manner, the opposite of the precision that a medical amputation requires.
Other possible explanations for the amputation that researchers considered included an accident or a war injury.
But after closer examination of the bones, they concluded that punishment was the most fitting interpretation, according to Li Nan, the lead author of the study and an archaeologist at Peking University in China.
For over 1,000 years, the yue punishment was practiced in ancient China. It was finally abolished in the second century B.C.
At the time the woman was alive, there were 500 different offenses that could lead to having a foot amputated, such as cheating, stealing, rebelling, and even climbing over certain gates.
Unfortunately, there were no clues to tell the researchers what the woman had been punished for.
Yue was enforced since the second millennium B.C. by emperors of the Xia dynasty, which was the first dynasty of ancient China. It was one of five punishments that could be inflicted on people who broke the law.
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