The mummy of an infant excavated from the cemetery in north China.
Posted on 03/16/2010 3:18:32 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
In the middle of a terrifying desert north of Tibet, Chinese archaeologists have excavated an extraordinary cemetery. Its inhabitants died almost 4,000 years ago, yet their bodies have been well preserved by the dry air.
The cemetery lies in what is now China's northwest province of Xinjiang, yet the people have European features, with brown hair and long noses. Their remains, though lying in one of the world's largest deserts, are buried in upside-down boats. And where tombstones might stand, declaring pious hope for some god's mercy in the afterlife, their cemetery sports instead a vigorous forest of phallic symbols, signaling an intense interest in pleasures or utility of procreation.
The long-vanished people have no name, because their origin and identity are still unknown. But many clues are now emerging about their ancestry, their way of life and even the language they spoke.
Their graveyard, known as Small River Cemetery No. 5, lies near a dried-up riverbed in the Tarim Basin, a region encircled by mountain ranges. Most of the basin is occupied by the Taklimakan Desert, a wilderness so inhospitable that later travelers along the Silk Road would edge along its northern or southern borders.
In modern times the region has been occupied by Turkish-speaking Uighurs, joined in the last 50 years by Han settlers from China. Ethnic tensions have recently arisen between the two groups, with riots in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. A large number of ancient mummies, really desiccated corpses, have emerged from the sands, only to become pawns between the Uighurs and the Han.
The 200 or so mummies have a distinctively Western appearance, and the Uighurs, even though they did not arrive in the region until the 10th century, have cited them to claim that the province was always theirs. Some of the mummies, including a well-preserved woman known as the Beauty of Loulan, were analyzed by Li Jin, a well-known geneticist at Fudan University, who said in 2007 that their DNA contained markers indicating an East Asian and even South Asian origin.
In the women's coffins, the Chinese archaeologists encountered one or more life-size wooden phalluses laid on the body or by its side. Looking again at the shaping of the 13-foot poles that rise from the prow of each woman's boat, the archaeologists concluded that the poles were in fact gigantic phallic symbols.
The mummies in the Small River Cemetery are, so far, the oldest discovered in the Tarim Basin. Carbon tests done at Beijing University show that the oldest part dates to 3,980 years ago. A team of Chinese geneticists has analyzed the mummies' DNA.
Despite the political tensions over the mummies' origin, the Chinese said the people were of mixed ancestry, having both European and Siberian genetic markers.
The mummy of an infant excavated from the cemetery in north China.
I hope we’re spared a Bill Clinton visit to see these mummies.
Clearly not Asian, then. ;-)
Human Origins | Archaeology
The Mummies of Xinjiang
http://discovermagazine.com/1994/apr/themummiesofxinj359
In the dry hills of the central Asian province, archeologists have unearthed more than 100 corpses that are as much as 4,000 years old, astonishingly well preserved—and caucasian.
By Evan Hadingham
EXCERPT:
Intriguingly, evidence of a long-extinct language belonging to the Indo-European family does exist in central Asia. This language, known as Tocharian, is recorded in manuscripts from the eighth century A.D., and solid evidence for its existence can be found as far back as the third century. Tocharian inscriptions from this period are also found painted in caves in the foothills of the mountains west of Ürümqi, along with paintings of swashbuckling knights wielding long swords. The knights are depicted with full red beards and European faces. Could the Xinjiang people have been their ancestors, speaking an early version of Tocharian? “My guess is that they would have been speaking some form of Indo-European,” comments Don Ringe, a historical linguist at the University of Pennsylvania, “but whether it was an early form of Tocharian or some other branch of the family, such as Indo-Iranian, we may never know for sure.”
Perhaps a highly distinctive language would help explain why the Xinjiang people’s distinctive appearance and culture persisted over so many centuries. Eventually they might well have assimilated with the local population—the major ethnic group in the area today, the Uygur, includes people with unusually fair hair and complexions. That possibility will soon be investigated when Mair, Francalacci, and their Chinese colleagues compare DNA from ancient mummy tissue with blood and hair samples from local people.
Besides the riddle of their identity, there is also the question of what these fair-haired people were doing in a remote desert oasis. Probably never wealthy enough to own chariots, they nevertheless had wagons and well-tailored clothes. Were they mere goat and sheep farmers? Or did they profit from or even control prehistoric trade along the route that later became the Silk Road? If so, they probably helped spread the first wheels and certain metalworking skills into China.
“Ultimately I think our project may end up having tremendous implications for the origins of Chinese civilization,” Mair reflects. “For all their incredible inventiveness, the ancient Chinese weren’t cut off from the rest of the world, and influences didn’t just flow one way, from China westward.”
Only a very uninformed journalist or a pointy-headed academic would presume to interpret a symbol of an ancient people by modern ideas.
Over here a mummy needs help..
The lost tribes of Israel?
Gosh, now that was funny! I LOL’d out loud!
ping
ping
Either way, he’ll be aroused
My minds made up. I want one of those phallic symbols marking my grave.
I agree. There are certain phallic symbols that are very obvious - the huge pieces of wood with balls attached from the South Pacific, for example. They were barely even symbolic but were more like huge depictions.
But there are other upright symbols that may have meant other things. Who were these people and what did they believe?
Well, how many people hate you? ;-)
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Thanks GSP.FAN and Pontiac.It's been a while since we had a topic about this. |
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Too early for “Lost” Tribes by over 1,000 years; this would be pre-Exodus. Instead, this would be approximately the time of Abraham entering Caanan.
Maybe sons of the “Sons of Cain”.
.
Kennewick realtive?
Very interesting. And strange.
Description Tian Chen mummy, close-up of head. Rights:© Australian MuseumAdditional information Mummies from four burial sites between the Tian Shan ('Celestial Mountains') of north-west China and the Taklimakan Desert. They are of Indo-European appearance with red or blonde hair and wear colourful woollen clothing. They date from 4000 to 2300 years ago, and are in a better state of preservation than many Egyptian mummies. They were buried in the driest, saltiest part of Central Asia during winter, in bottomless coffins that allowed the freezing air to circulate. Their bodies froze and dried out before decay could set in.
The Taklimakanm Desert appears to be a huge dried up lakebed. No wonder they had boats!
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