BRITISH RESEARCHER ELIZABETH WAYLAND BARBER BELIEVES THAT 3-4 THOUSAND YEARS AGO IN THE WEST OF PRESENT CHINA LIVED PEOPLE OF THE EUROPEAN RACE, KIND OF CELTIANS - ANCESTORES OF SCOTTES ORIENTALS
In the museum of the city of Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of the PRC, there is a whole hall of surprisingly well-preserved mummies of people who lived in the second and even third millennium BC. And what is amazing is that they, most likely, were not mummified at all in the sense that the ancient Egyptians practiced it.
The bodies of the deceased, their clothes are perfectly preserved due to the confluence of climatic and geological conditions. Just as the permafrost saved Siberian mammoths from decomposition, salt deposits in the Takla-Makan desert and the Turfan depression became a natural "mumirikator": the salt pulled on moisture, which quickly evaporated in a dry environment, and it, salt, killed microorganisms.
In a particularly good condition is the so-called "Cherchen man" - a mummy found in a burial near the banks of the Cherchen River in the east of the Takla-Makan desert. The book by Elizabeth W. Barber (a purely scientific publication, one volume of which costs $ 340) provides a detailed description of the "Cherchen man". It looks as if the visitors of the museum involuntarily speak in a whisper, as if fearing to wake up the "Cherchen". He rests in the posture of a man who has fallen asleep in a hammock - his head and knees are raised. The clothes were well preserved: a robe belted with a plaited cord, and brightly colored knitted stockings. All this is made of sheep yarn. On the left leg there is a tall leather dude. The face of the "Cherchen man" is bright. Slightly curly, light brown hair is braided into two braids that run down the shoulders - of two, not three, as the Chinese once had, strands. Light gray hair gives reason to believe that the deceased was over 50. He was distinguished by an enviable height - almost two meters. But, most importantly, a large, prominent nose on the face is uncharacteristic for Asians. On the basis of the sum of external signs, scientists make the assumption: “the Cherchen man” is the direct ancestor of today's Europeans.
In the same burial were the remains of three adult women. The body of one of them, too, has not undergone decay, and her mummy is in excellent condition. This woman matched the "Cherchen man" - 191 cm tall. The same non-Asian type of face with traces of colored cosmetics, the same light brown hair (today they would say - a reddish brown-haired woman). Two strands of hair are added to the braids. Apparently, heavy braids were appreciated then. Clothes - knitted sheep wool.
Near the main burial site, archaeologists discovered the grave of a three-month-old baby lying on a felt mat and a pillow made of white sheep's wool. With him - a vessel from a cow's horn and, most likely, the most ancient teat from a sheep's udder.
Even more ancient mummies - a thousand years older than the "Cherchen man" - were found in the east of the Taklamakan desert in the Loulan region. They are wearing less colorful clothes, but these mummies are also well preserved. The museum in Urumqi displays the mummy of a woman whose face is so beautiful in eternal peace that the local Turks (Uighurs) call her their "sleeping beauty", although anthropologically it is not close to either the Turkic or the Han (Chinese) types. The Türks and Mongoloids, writes Elizabeth W. Barber, began to penetrate into these lands, judging by the burials in the Tarim Basin, 1500 years after the “Loulan beauty” lived. Nevertheless, the Uighurs can consider her among their ancestors: often among the inhabitants of Xinjiang there are blue-eyed people with light brown or reddish hair. This is a legacy of the mixing of the Turks who came to Xinjiang with people of European appearance who lived here before them, who lost their language and culture among the masses of newcomers from the North and East, but, of course, retained their genetic characteristics.
Promotional video:
The utensils found in the burial of the "sleeping beauty" are noteworthy. Wheat seeds were found in a dense knitted bag, and on her chest she had a sieve for sifting the grains. In China at that time they knew rice, not wheat - it was originally cultivated in the Middle East, therefore, the people to which the "sleeping beauty" belonged came to Xinjiang from the west. Where exactly is from is a mystery.
The third burial, the mummies of which are in the museum, is located in the area of the city of Hami, 480 km east of Urumqi, in a place that the Uighurs call Kyzyl-choka (Red Hill). These mummies have survived worse than the "Cherchen man", but they also leave no doubt about the racial relationship with him and the identity of material culture. However, from the point of view of Elizabeth W. Barber, there is a significant difference: the fabric from which the clothes on these mummies are made are very reminiscent of a celtic plaid tartan in color and ornament. The researcher notes in this regard that the Celts are not indigenous to the British Isles. They began to penetrate there only in the fourth century BC from Central Europe, where they had lived for a thousand years before. According to the description of the ancient Greeks and Romans, who suffered a lot from the warlike Celts,at that time they were tall, fair-haired people. In Europe, they chose the territory of what is now Austria and Hungary. Judging by their sites in those parts, the ancient Celts were especially attracted by the salt deposit (the area of the Austrian Salzburg). How not to remember that it was in the salt deposits that the contemporaries of the "Cherchen man" buried their dead.
In addition, during excavations in Austria, at the sites of the Celts, half-rotted plaid blankets were discovered, which are identical in design, manner of manufacturing and even the weight of material per unit area of the product to those found in Xinjiang.
In a word, miracles and nothing more. The mummies in the museum of the Western Chinese city of Urumqi pose such a mystery to scientists, which is hardly possible to decipher completely.