Mummies stir political row in China [Caucasian Mummies?]

The Times of India ^ | 20 Nov 2008, 0001 hrs IST | The Times of India

[MyTwoCopperCoins]

URUMQI (China): An exhibit in the museum in Urumqui gives the government's unambiguous take on the history of this border region: "Xinjiang has been an inalienable part of the territory of China," says one prominent sign.

But walk upstairs and the ancient corpses on display seem to tell a different story. One called the Loulan Beauty lies on her back with her shoulder-length hair matted down her high cheekbones and long nose the most obvious signs that she is not what one thinks of as Chinese.

The Loulan Beauty is one of more than 200 remarkably well-preserved mummies discovered in the western deserts here over the last few decades. The ancient bodies have become protagonists in a very contemporary political dispute over who should control the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

The Chinese authorities here face an intermittent separatist movement of nationalist Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim people who number nine million in Xinjiang. At the heart of the matter lie these questions: Who first settled this inhospitable part of western China? And for how long has the oil-rich region been part of the Chinese empire?

Uighur nationalists have gleaned evidence from mummies, whose corpses span thousands of years, to support historical claims to the region. Foreign scholars say that at the very least, the Tarim mummies seem to indicate the very first people to settle the area came from the west - down from the steppes of Central Asia and even farther afield - and not from the plains and river valleys of Chinese interior. The oldest, like the Loulan Beauty, date back 3,800 years.

The mummies show that humans entered the region almost certainly from the west. As a result the government has been unwilling to give broad access to foreign scientists to conduct genetic tests on the mummies.

[MyTwoCopperCoins]

"They had taken the head off so that we would not photograph the Indo- European head, "Davis-Kimball says.

http://www.s8int.com/page26.html

[autumnraine]

Isn’t there an area of Asia that has red hair?

[Cementjungle]

...more than 200 remarkably well-preserved mummies discovered in the western deserts....

Somehow I'll bet ACORN is involved in this.

[PistolPaknMama]

GGG ping!

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Roman descendants found in China?

[blam]

Tocharians

"Tocharian donors", possibly the "Knights with Long Swords" of Chinese accounts, depicted with light hair and light eye color and dressed in Sassanian style. 6th century CE fresco, Qizil, Tarim Basin. Graphical analysis reveals that the third donor from left is performing a Buddhist vitarka mudra. These frescoes are associated with annotations in Tocharian and Sanskrit made by their painters.There is evidence both from the mummies and Chinese writings that many of them had blonde or red hair and blue eyes, characteristics also found in present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Central Asia, due to the populations' high genetic diversity. This suggests the possibility that they were part of an early migration of speakers of Indo-European languages that ended in what is now the Tarim Basin in western China. According to a controversial theory, early invasions by Turkic speakers may have pushed Tocharian speakers out of the Tarim Basin and into modern Afghanistan, India, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan."

[SunkenCiv]

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[RobinOfKingston]

... the oil-rich region ...

Ah, yes. The crux of the matter.

[ForegoneAlternative]

Not only that, but red-haired caucasian mummies who wore plaid.

No. Seriously. Saw it on Nova, like, ten years ago.

The Celts really *did* come from that part of the world, apparently, before they covered all territory west of there for a while.

Now there’s only various famous, heh, pockets, me boy-o.

[chesley]

Seemss to me that I read somewhere that Genghis Khan had red hair and green eyes. But I don’t remember where, and I doubt it was a reputable source.

Anybody know?

[blam]

I’ve read that there are many Chinese poems lamenting the green eyes of the (Han) Chinese Emperors.

[ff52051]

“Emperors”?

If you dont have any clue just dont say anything.

First, there were no Chinese han “emperors” with green eyes,there is just one king who get a green eye in our several thousand years long history.

And its definitely not the Han emperor,its the three-kingdoms era king who got the green eys, he is the king of one small kingdom, Wu at that time.

His name is Sun Quan, he is the second son of Sun Jian, the founder of Wu.

The reason why he has a green eye is because his mother is cacuasian, so he is a mixed blood, as the historical documents have well documented.

[afraidfortherepublic]

I will add (again) that I visited the clay soldiers from the tombs in Xian 25 years ago and noted that some of them bore Caucasian features. They looked like Turks to me. I know these are just statues, but they are very realisitc and they are all different. It was thought that they were representations of the Emporor’s actual army.

[chesley]

If you dont have any clue just dont say anything.

How else are you going to learn?

[blam]

"If you dont have any clue just dont say anything."

I don't usually respond to people with your attitude but, you seem to be particularly stupid.

Read this book by two professors: The Tarim Mummies

[ff52051]

Funny its barely a theory written by westers who can barely speak any modern Chinese, not to mention ancient Chinese language which is significanlty more diffcult.

Actually if your claims is based on this book then the theory in this book is not consistant with well known Chinese historical documents which have recorded almost everything since eternality.

They even recorded minor things like some minor king from a minor kingdom like East Wu get a green/blue eye, so you know they certainly wont forget to record major events such as if there is a Han Emperor got a green eye.

But we all know, there is not a SINGLE chinese historical document has ever mentioned such unusual findings, so the conclusion we can draw is the theory in your book is very likely to be the usual nonsense from west.

Of cause this conclusion is based on the assumption that your claims, as you suggested, is indeed based on this book.

Btw, do you even know where is Tarim located?

[blam]

"Funny its barely a theory written by westerners who can barely speak any modern Chinese, not to mention ancient Chinese language which is significanlty more diffcult."

You should quit while you're ahead.

Dr Mair is one of the authors of the book:

Professor Victor Mair

Victor H. Mair (born 1943) is a Indo-Europeanist and Sinologist, and a Professor of Chinese Language and Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States. Professor Mair has edited the standard Columbia History of Chinese Literature and the Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature.

Dr. Mair received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1976. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania since 1979. He is also founder and editor of Sino-Platonic Papers, an academic journal examining Chinese, East Asian and Central Asian linguistics and literature.

Dr. Mair specializes in early vernacular Chinese, and is responsible for translations of the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi. He has also collaborated on interdisciplinary research on the archeology of Eastern Central Asia. The American Philosophical Society awarded him membership in 2007.

[snip]