A 7,000-year-old ancient tomb unearthed in Lam Dong district, Xi’an city, China has given archaeologists a headache because of the anomaly and mystery behind it. The story begins in 1995, when the construction of  the national highway was suddenly stopped because the workers dug up a lot of ceramics and a few relics of archaeological historical value.

As soon as they received the news, the team of experts quickly went to this location and speculated that this place must have appeared in the period before humanity’s Ban Pha civilization, specifically at least 7,000 years ago today.

During the excavation, experts found an ancient tomb with no traces of theft with many ceramics and stone tools.

Part of the remains of the female owner of the tomb. Image: Kknews

What was surprising was that when experts cleaned up the remains, they saw a set of remains with a bone structure very different from that of a normal person. Specifically, the owner of the tomb was a woman and she had 18 extra bones compared to the number of bones of ordinary people. At this time, there are 3 questions being asked by archaeological experts!

First, the body’s ribs were broken in many places. These 18 bone fragments were added haphazardly. Is it possible that the skeletal structure of ancient people was different from our modern people?

A broken bone of the owner of the tomb. Image: Kknews

Second, according to the autopsy results, the grave owner was a very young girl, who died at about 14 – 15 years old. However, there was a bone in the pubic bone of this “girl”. Some scholars even boldly speculated that the tomb owner was an inter𝑠e𝑥 person, but this idea was quickly rejected.

Third, in the shoulders, ribs and other parts of the remains there are many bone fragments with slightly different colors than the rest of the remains. So what are the 18 extra bone fragments?

REVEALING HEINOUS CRIMES

After careful research, the final conclusion of the group of experts was that these 18 extra bone fragments were not the girl’s remains. Because there were no other bones in the tomb, experts initially confirmed that this was not a sacrificial burial, because the ceramics and tombs had very high standards, so the possibility of a slave burial was ruled out.

According to research by a group of cultural and historical scholars, the owner of the tomb is the daughter of a tribal leader, who once committed a serious crime related to the tribe’s marriage rules.

Excess bone fragments were found in the grave owner’s remains. Image: Sina

The punishment for girls who do not comply with marriage customs is having their ribs broken and then using 18 sharp tools, similar to animal bones, to pound into their bodies until they die . So in the pubic bone below, a bone is found for that reason.

Because the corpse decomposed due to its age, the bones used to cover the woman’s body fell off and mixed with the remains, causing the archaeological team to be unable to find the cause.

In primitive societies, such methods of punishment were not unusual. But perhaps the tomb owner was also the daughter of the clan, so she was buried properly.

Even so, the group of experts couldn’t help but shudder: “If this is true, then this girl is too miserable and this is an unacceptable crime.” The lives of people, especially women, were really low at that time. They could suffer extremely tragic deaths while fighting for their own lives.