Skeleton finds turn spotlight on China

Updated: 2016-09-28 16:38

By CHRIS PETERSON(China Daily UK)

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Two skeletons apparently of Chinese origin found by archaeologists excavating a Roman cemetery on the south bank of the River Thames in London mean history books covering links between the Chinese empire and its Roman equivalent will have to be rewritten.

The two sets of remains were discovered with four other skeletons, which were found to be of African origin after exhaustive scientific tests by forensic experts from the University of Michigan in the United States.

The Chinese remains date to between 200 and 400 AD, during which emperors from the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220) to the Eastern Jin Dynasty (AD 317-420) ruled ancient China.

Rebecca Redfern, from the Museum of London, who has been working on the project, said, "In this cemetery, they are Mr Average Roman Londoner. There's nothing marking them out, so this was a total surprise."

The graveyard is in Southwark, which back in the days of Londinium, as the capital of Roman Britain was called, was one of the poorer, more squalid parts of the city.

Historians had known that the Chinese and Roman empires were aware of each other, but European knowledge of China only became more widely known through the journals of adventurer Marco Polo, the Venetian who traversed the Silk Road in the 13th century.

It is not 100 percent certain that the two skeletons are of Chinese origin, although advanced testing concludes that they are from Asia.

"Itmaywell be that these individuals were themselves slaves, or descended fromenslaved people originating from Asia, as there were slave-trade connections between India and China, and India and Rome," Redfern wrote in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

However, she said it was possible that the two skeletons may have been those of China traders selling their wares in the busy heart of Roman Britain.

But the discovery does showthat therewerestronger ties between the Roman and Chinese empires than had been thought.

Historians say the Chinese empire, with its cultural and scientific advances, including the magnetic compass invented in AD 209 during the Eastern Han Dynasty, was aware of the Roman Empire. This stretched from Mesopotamia in the east-now most of Iraq plus Kuwait-and Britain in thewest.

A Chinese travel guide, written in about AD 300, says of Europeans, "The common people are tall and virtuous, like the Chinese." It adds that they also made good linen and cloth.

However, China was far more advanced than Roman Europe, with its complex social order and wide array of inventions and discoveries during the HanDynasty.

These include advances in astronomy and traditional medicines, sophisticated agricultural implements, the use of paper and advanced calligraphy, the first rudimentary seismograph and the development of silk as a material.

In London, The Times said of the latest archaeological finds, "Archaeologists and anthropologists can only speculate on how these two Chinese ended up in London.

"Their ancestors may have voyaged across Asia and Europe over generations, or itmight have been the journey of a lifetime. They could have been silk traders seeking new markets in theWest, or inquisitive youths keen to study farflung corners of the world.Maybe student visas were easier to come by in those days," the newspaper concluded.

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