According to ancient tombs and historical materials excavated by archaeologists, ancient human martyrdom first appeared in Shang Dynasty. Shang dynasty was still in the slave period, and slave owners needed funerary objects, precious jewels and things used before their death. Slaves, as personal belongings of slave owners, will also be arranged in.
During the Shang Dynasty, the system of human sacrifice was very common, ranging from dozens to thousands. There were many cruel systems in ancient China, among which human sacrifice was the most heinous. This system was gradually banned during Qin Shihuang's reign, but after Qin Shihuang's death, Qin Ershi came to power and reactivated it. It was not officially banned until the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, so from the early years of the Western Han Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty, there was no human sacrifice.
Until the period of Zhu Yuanzhang, this system was re-enabled, and most of the martyrs were women who were related to the deceased. At that time, many people advocated the importance of women's chastity and supported burial for chastity. So there was the bad habit of burying women with them. Until the reign of Kangxi, officials wrote a letter and Kangxi ordered the abolition of this bad habit.
Ancient human sacrifice is one of the cruel systems in China. The continuation of the ancient and foolish feudal thought has made the human sacrifice system have the soil for development. They think that human sacrifice can show their status, but in ancient times, human sacrifice was mostly used to sacrifice gods, which led to many innocent people being killed.