About 1,500 years ago, in what is now South Korea, a gruesome practice known as ‘sunjang’ dictated that servants, retainers, and even entire families be killed and buried alongside local royalty. A groundbreaking new genetic study of dozens of ancient skeletons has now revealed the existence of a special “sacrificial caste” of people whose grim duty was passed down through generations to serve the elite in the afterlife.
The Imdang-Joyeong burial complex, first excavated in 1982, contains more than 1,600 tombs and the remains of at least 259 individuals. The graves belonged to local ruling families descended from Abdok, a small state assimilated into the Silla Kingdom around the 4th century. While historical texts like the Samguk Sagi (Chronicles of the Three States) mention the practice of sunjang, the new DNA analysis paints a far more detailed and disturbing picture of how it was carried out.
Researchers discovered that at least 20 of the tombs displayed evidence of sunjang. Most shockingly, they identified three cases where closely related individuals, including parent-child pairs, were sacrificed and interred together in the same tomb. One burial contained both parents and their child, sacrificed together to accompany a deceased noble. “Our genetic findings are the first to confirm the acts of sunjang of an entire household,” the researchers wrote in their paper.
The team reconstructed 13 family trees spanning over a century, revealing an extensive kinship network focused on maternal lineages. The genetic relatedness among sacrificial individuals over generations suggests the presence of specific families that served as sacrifices for the grave owner class for consecutive generations, effectively forming a sacrificial caste.
The study also shed light on the marriage practices of the Silla Kingdom. Historical records have long suggested that Silla royal elites practiced consanguineous (close-kin) marriage to consolidate rank and social status, a practice distinct from neighboring kingdoms like Goguryeo. The DNA analysis confirmed this, but with an unexpected twist. Researchers found five individuals whose parents were closely related, including one first-cousin pairing. Surprisingly, this close-kin marriage was practiced by both the royal elites (the grave owners) and the non-royal individuals who were sacrificed, indicating that endogamy was practiced broadly across social groups rather than being confined solely to the elite class.
Furthermore, the genetic data revealed no meaningful distinction between the grave owners and those sacrificed. Both groups belonged to the same local population, proving that the sacrificial victims were not outsiders, prisoners of war, or captives from other regions, but rather members of the local community. Jack Davey, director of the Early Korean Studies Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, noted the profound implications of the study:
The findings raise complex questions about slavery, social mobility, and institutionalized violence in the 1,500-year-old kingdom
The practice of sunjang was rooted in the belief that the dead would require attendants, servants, and even family members in the afterlife. The victims were often buried in a subsidiary chamber next to the main chamber containing the grave owner. However, as the Silla Kingdom grew more centralized and influenced by Buddhism, attitudes toward human sacrifice began to shift. According to historical records, the practice of sunjang was formally abolished in 502 AD during the reign of King Jijeung. The prohibition marked a significant cultural and religious shift in ancient Korean society, moving away from institutionalized human sacrifice toward more symbolic offerings.
This groundbreaking research not only confirms the grim reality of human sacrifice in ancient Korea but also highlights a unique family structure and kinship network that differs significantly from those observed in ancient Europe and elsewhere. The researchers noted that the Silla Kingdom’s family structure was focused on maternal lineages, a pattern not commonly seen in other ancient societies of the era.
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