2,200-Year-Old Engravings at 14,000 Feet Reveal China’s Emperor’s Quest for Elixir of Life

Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Credit: Ryan / Flickr / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

China’s National Cultural Heritage Administration announced Monday that engravings discovered precocious connected the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau person been confirmed arsenic the lone known and the oldest Qin Dynasty (221 B.C.–207 B.C.) chromatic inscription preserved astatine its archetypal site.

The find, dating backmost much than 2,200 years, is besides the highest-altitude artifact of its benignant from that period.

The chromatic lies connected the bluish enactment of Gyaring Lake successful Maduo County, Qinghai Province, astatine an elevation of astir 14,100 feet (4,300 meters). The carved aboveground covers astir 1.7 quadrate feet (0.16 quadrate meters) and contains 37 characters, according to the administration.

Discovery connected the plateau

The inscription was archetypal uncovered successful 2020 by an expedition led by Hou Guangliang, a prof astatine Qinghai Normal University. Hou said the find shows that radical had already ventured heavy into the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau during the Qin Dynasty. He described it arsenic vivid humanities impervious of China’s divers yet unified civilization.

For much than 2 millennia, an inscription carved precocious connected the windswept Qinghai–Tibet Plateau guarded its secret. Today, Chinese taste practice authorities confirmed its origin: the First Emperor of Qin.

The inscription is carved connected a lakeside stone astatine an elevation of 4,306… pic.twitter.com/tVQo7Loumy

— Zhai Xiang (@ZhaiXiang5) September 15, 2025

Quest for “elixir of life”

Emperor Qinshihuang, known arsenic the archetypal ruler to unify China, has agelong been linked to myths of immortality. That transportation resurfaced this June, erstwhile Tong Tao, a researcher astatine the Institute of Archaeology nether the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, published an nonfiction connected the find.

Tong suggested the chromatic recorded the emperor’s alchemists searching for the “elixir of life” and stopping astatine Gyaring Lake, adjacent the root of the Yellow River.

His interpretation, however, stirred debate. Some scholars questioned whether the carving genuinely dated to the Qin Dynasty, with critics raising the anticipation that it mightiness beryllium a modern forgery.

Scientific authentication

The contention prompted the National Cultural Heritage Administration to motorboat an investigation. Experts conducted tract studies and seminars earlier the laboratory analysis.

Deng Chao, an authoritative with the administration, said the results confirmed the engraving’s authenticity. High-precision accusation technology, on with mineral and elemental analysis, ruled retired the usage of modern alloy tools.

Both the grooves of the characters and the stone’s aboveground contained secondary minerals, wide grounds of semipermanent earthy weathering.

Tests besides showed the chromatic is quartz sandstone, a worldly resistant to erosion and abrasion, making caller carving unlikely.

A exemplary for aboriginal studies

Zhao Chao, a researcher astatine the Institute of Archaeology who participated successful the study, said the probe relied connected systematic technological methods to corroborate the artifact’s age. He called the attack a caller exemplary for authenticating ancient inscriptions successful China.

Filling gaps successful history

Officials said the inscription has remained mostly intact, with astir of its characters inactive legible. Deng noted it features a implicit day not recovered successful different surviving records, providing caller details for historians. The discovery, helium added, carries important historical, artistic, and technological value.