Earliest known steel acupuncture needles found in Haihun Marquis Tomb
Archaeologists have discovered ultra-fine steel needles measuring just 0.3 to 0.5 millimeters in diameter inside a jade tube found in the tomb of Liu He, the Marquis of Haihun. Dating back more than 2,000 years to the Western Han Dynasty, the needles were forged from crucible steel using decarburized wrought-iron techniques, demonstrating the advanced metallurgical skills of the time.
These are the earliest known physical examples of steel acupuncture needles that closely match modern clinical standards. Likely used for therapeutic acupuncture and buried with medicine spoons, the set offers rare material evidence of early Chinese medicinal techniques, marking a turning point from empirical healing to precise treatment.
RELATED STORIES
CHOOSE YOUR LANGUAGE
- Albanian Shqip
- Arabic العربية
- Belarusian Беларуская
- Bengali বাংলা
- Bulgarian Български
- Cambodian ខ្មែរ
- Croatian Hrvatski
- Czech Český
- English English
- Esperanto Esperanto
- Filipino Filipino
- French Français
- German Deutsch
- Greek Ελληνικά
- Hausa Hausa
- Hebrew עברית
- Hungarian Magyar
- Hindi हिन्दी
- Indonesian Bahasa Indonesia
- Italian Italiano
- Japanese 日本語
- Korean 한국어
- Lao ລາວ
- Malay Bahasa Melayu
- Mongolian Монгол
- Myanmar မြန်မာဘာသာ
- Nepali नेपाली
- Persian فارسی
- Polish Polski
- Portuguese Português
- Pashto پښتو
- Romanian Română
- Russian Русский
- Serbian Српски
- Sinhalese සිංහල
- Spanish Español
- Swahili Kiswahili
- Tamil தமிழ்
- Thai ไทย
- Turkish Türkçe
- Ukrainian Українська
- Urdu اردو
- Vietnamese Tiếng Việt
互联网新闻信息许可证10120180008
Disinformation report hotline: 010-85061466