A Host of Mummies, a Forest of Secrets
The Sand Dune Forgotten By Time (Caucasian Mummies In China - More)
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.
Considering the amazing amount of (phalli? phalluses?) entombed with the women, one can surmise that they didn’t contemplate an afterlife reunited with their husband’s or lovers.
Or, terrible thought, perhaps that’s exactly what they thought—no 72 male virgins there—and wanted to be prepared.
Or they were placed next to the bodies just in case they weren’t dead and came back to life in the coffin.
I tell ya, the theories you can come up with when explaining archeological artifacts are limitless.
Exactly. How will archeologists interpret out tombstones 10,000 years from now? They stick up in the air don't they? What will they say about the Christians meeting to eat bread and drink wine? A drunken food orgy for gluttons?
I’ve laid awake at night wondering what future archaeologists will say about us and how much of it will be utter nonsense.
http://www.nd.edu/~nsl/Lectures/phys178/pdf/chap3_3.pdf
DNA sampling was done on eleven mummies. Only 1 was allowed to be exported for testing and showed Haplogroup H largely (40%) associated with people of European origin (15% Near East population.)
I find the textile information very interesting.
http://encyclopedia.stateuniversity.com/pages/21723/tartan.html
Origins
“Textile analysis of fabric from Indo-European Tocharian graves in Western China has shown similarities to the Iron Age civilizations of Europe dating from 800 BC, including woven twill and tartan patterns strikingly similar to Celtic tartans from Northwest Europe. Tartan patterns have been used in Scottish, Irish, Northumbrian (north east English) and Welsh weaving for centuries....”
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Tartan
“Origins
“Today tartan may be mostly associated with Scotland, however the earliest evidence of tartan is found far afield from the British Isles. According to the textile historian E. J. W. Barber, the Hallstatt culture was the predominant Central European culture from the 8th to 6th centuries BC , developing out of the Urnfield culture of the 12th century BC and followed in much of Central Europe by the La Tène culture...Also, textile analysis of fabric from Indo-European graves in Western China has shown it to be similar to the Iron Age....Tartan-like leggings were found on the “Cherchen Man”, a 3,000 year-old mummy found in the Taklamakan Desert in western China. The Tarim mummies are a series of mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China, which date from 1800 BCE to 200 CE...”
The Tocharian corpses are 4000 year old. Textile analysis indicates that their tartans are similar to Celtic ones of a century later. Could these folk be the ancestors of the Celts?
A Host of Mummies, a Forest of Secrets
The Sand Dune Forgotten By Time (Caucasian Mummies In China - More)
“I’ve laid awake at night wondering what future archaeologists will say about us and how much of it will be utter nonsense...”
Clearly these people, though seperated by strange groupings called Democrats and Republicans, were all worshipping the same demigod, known only by the symbol “O”.
For those of you who are interested, read the below linked thread for a better understanding:
On The Presence Of Non-Chinese At Anyang
Pre-industrial global warming?
Obviously patrons of a sex tourism company gone bad.
“Europe dating from 800 BC, including woven twill and tartan patterns strikingly similar to Celtic tartans from Northwest Europe. Tartan patterns have been used in Scottish, Irish, Northumbrian (north east English) and Welsh “
That would also explain the large phallic symbols or as us Irish say “Average”...
Slainte
Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig.
I blush.
Sure those aren’t celts just giving everyone the finger?
They are Celts, they’re wearing their kilts, and that isn’t the Finger... ;’)
http://news.scotsman.com/getEdFrontImage.aspx?ImageID=456162
http://news.scotsman.com/news/DNA-experts—reveal-China39s.6168665.jp
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