Today’s Hammered Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
It was during the reign of Shun Yu (A.D. 1241-53) in China that the first real advance was made in the use of forensic sciences as we know them. In Shun Yu’s reign a certain Sung Tz’u, a judicial intendent of Hupeh Province, began going through various ancient and current texts, together with acquired local knowledge. From these he compiled the His-yuan-li – “Records of the Redressing of Wrongs” or “Instructions to Coroners”.
The office and functions of the coroner – wu-tso – as we know him today were thoroughly familiar to educated Chinese long ago, and the His-yuan-li is specific in its details, and makes it quite clear that the penalty for murder is death – “an eye for an eye” is a rigorously maintained principle. The text is insistent about the scrupulous administration of just punishment, and about the expert examination of a corpse, together with the proper deductions which must be drawn from such an examination.
The coroner is expected to conduct his actions – from his examination of the victim to his final verdict – with patience, honestly and insight. He must check with care any wounds found on a body, doing so quickly before decomposition sets in. He must take care that there is no tampering with the available evidence by others, and that those who may be found guilty must not in any way interfere with the evidence on which the coroner can act, and on which he can base his conclusions.
One of the important places a coroner is advised to examine when presented with a dead body is the top of the head. A favorite method of murder was to hammer a nail into the top of the victim’s head, when the hair would hide the hail head, particularly if the nail head was touched with a little black stain. This theme was something of a favorite in Chinese crime novels as far back as the middle of the seventeenth century, one such novel depicting the “investigator” being baffled by the way a man met his death until he notices flies congregating about the head of the corpse, parts the hair and discovers an inserted nail.
Culled from: Crimes and Punishment – the Illustrated Crime Encyclopedia, Volume 13
Fascinating! (I like the fastidiousness of that bit of black satin on the head of the nail)!
“Nails in Black Satin” could be a hit for a Chinese Goth band…
Hitting the nail on the head, literally. But who would sit/lie/stand still for it?