His appearance from more than 1,400 years ago has been restored!

Wearing an imperial crown, lean and heroic, majestic without anger - Fudan University's Institute of Archaeology and Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology officially announced the "reconstruction map" of the head of Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, Yuwen Yong, and related archaeological findings on the 28th. This is the first time in my country that the appearance of an ancient emperor has been restored through scientific and technological archaeology, giving history a fresh breath.

According to historical records, Emperor Yuwen Yong (543-578 AD) was born into the Xianbei ethnic group. After unifying northern China, he was ambitious to "pacify the Turks and settle the south of the Yangtze River." Unfortunately, his ambition was not fulfilled and he died young. He was buried with Empress Wude Ashina in the Xiaoling Mausoleum in Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province today.

The lower left picture is a restored image of Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, Yuwen Yong. The lower right picture is Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, Yuwen Yong, as depicted in Yan Liben's "Illustrations of Emperors of Successive Dynasties". Image courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, Fudan University

The biggest difficulty in restoring the appearance of ancient Chinese emperors is to obtain complete skulls and high-quality genome data of ancient emperors. Fortunately, from 1994 to 1995, the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology and the Xianyang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology successfully carried out rescue excavations at the Xiaoling Mausoleum, discovering the skull, limb bones and the seal of Empress Dowager Tianyuan of Yuwen Yong, which confirmed the identity of this Xianbei emperor.

Wen Shaoqing's team from the Institute of Archaeology and Technology of Fudan University used a capture probe specifically for ancient DNA to obtain about 1 million available gene sites from the limb bone samples of Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou, restoring key features such as the hair, skin, and pupils of Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou. After six years of repeated attempts, they finally "depicted" the head of Emperor Yuwen Yong.

What did Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou, Yuwen Yong, look like? The restored portrait shows that he had black hair, yellow skin and brown eyes, which conforms to the typical appearance of Northeast Asians and East Asians , which is very different from the Xianbei people's imagination of thick hair and beard, yellowish hair, high nose and deep eyes.

The image of Yuwen Yong was also painted by the Tang Dynasty painter Yan Liben in "Illustrations of Emperors of Successive Dynasties". The Northern Zhou Emperor Wu depicted by Yan Liben had a plump face and a plump figure, while the restored Yuwen Yong looked thin and capable.

"The family tree of Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou shows that his grandmother, Wang, was probably a northern Han Chinese," Wen Shaoqing said. "The formation of the Xianbei ethnic group was probably a dynamic process of multi-ethnic integration."

"Restoring the appearance of Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty is a pioneering effort in historical research." Han Sheng, a professor at the History Department of Fudan University, believes that the Northern and Southern Dynasties was a far-reaching period of ethnic integration in Chinese history. Scientific and technological archaeology not only provides evidence for related historical research, but also enhances people's understanding of the diversity and unity of the Chinese nation.

Planning and production

Source: Xinhua News Agency

Editor: Wang Mengru

Proofread by Xu Lailinlin