This Woman Who Lived in 14th-Century China May Have Had Her Nose Cut Off as Punishment for Theft or Adultery

Cutting off a person’s nose without anesthesia was one of the “Five Punishments” that could be imposed in ancient China, along with decapitation, limb amputation, castration and facial tattooing. But although nasal amputations appear in historical texts, archaeologists had never found physical evidence of the painful penalty—until now. Writing in a new paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, scientists describe the first skeletal evidence of facial mutilation as a form of punishment in ancient China.

In 2018, archaeologists were called in to survey an area of China’s Henan province ahead of the planned construction of a trade school. Their work revealed a burial ground containing 299 tombs. Within the cemetery, they found the remains of a woman between ages 40 and 45 who’d been buried facedown, a position that suggests she may have experienced discrimination.

Notably, the researchers didn’t find any other bodies in the cemetery buried this way. She was also buried alone, rather than inside a customary family or communal tomb. Radiocarbon dating revealed that the woman lived between 1298 and 1404 C.E., during either the late Yuan or early Ming dynasty.

The tomb’s design pointed to the Yuan dynasty. In 2024, Wang and his colleagues reported the discovery of two men who each had one leg punitively amputated. The remains were also found in China’s Henan province but date to around 550 B.C.E., during the Zhou dynasty.

An analysis of her remains suggests that she subsisted primarily on millet and consumed little animal protein, dietary patterns that might indicate her membership in a lower class. When the researchers took a closer look at her skull, they made some unexpected discoveries. She had an enlarged piriform aperture, or nose opening, and substantial amounts of bone and tissue appeared to have been cut away from bottom to top.

These unusual features might have stemmed from a birth defect, an accident, a disease or even self-mutilation. However, given her burial position and probable low socioeconomic status, the researchers think the woman’s nose was more likely cut off. They suspect she might have been punished for stealing horses or cattle.