|
Well-Preserved
Mummies Found in Xinjiang
|
????A team of Chinese
archaeologists have recently discovered dozens of remarkably well-preserved
mummies scattered about a sand dune on the western edge of Lop
Nur, a desolate area in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous
Region.
????"Never before have such a large number
of mummies been found in a single graveyard anywhere in the world,"
said Yang Lian, a research fellow with the Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences who led the group in early January.
????Yang said the exact number of bodies was
not determined, as they were buried in layers in what experts
believe is an ancient cemetery. Other bodies are lying on top
of or partially protruding from the sand, as well as inside semi-deteriorated
coffins.
????"It is estimated there are well over
100 mummified bodies," he said.
????The sand dune where the mummies were found
covers 2,400 square meters and rises as high as seven meters.
It looks like an isolated island in a sea of sand.
????"The mummies lying at the bottom are
older than those on the top layer as the sand dune was formed
over a long period of time," said Wang Binghua, the foremost
researcher of the Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology,
who had visited the site on a separate expedition.
????On the mummified body of a boy about six
or seven years old, a plump eyelid is still intact, and his long
brown hair still flows down his back. His skin has turned black.
????The mummified bodies found in coffins were
wrapped in leather and were not treated with any form of embalming,
unlike Egyptian mummies, said Xia Xuncheng, a researcher with
the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, who was on the
January trip.
????In Egypt, corpses of pharaohs or wealthy
men underwent a complicated embalming process. The Lop Nur mummies
were preserved naturally in the sandy area, which has annual rainfall
of 13 mm and a yearly evaporation rate of up to 4,000 mm, said
Xia.
????"The discovery of the mummies is of
great academic value to the study of social development in unrecorded
history," he noted.
????Xia, who has studied mummies in China for
decades, has made a careful study of a 3,800-year-old female mummy
who lived in the ancient civilization of Lou Lan. Based on the
sand found in the woman's lungs, experts believe Lop Nur became
an arid land some 4,000 years ago.
????Archaeologist have theorized that the newly
found mummies were Indo-European men, judging from the facial
structure and size of the bodies.
????The experts believe the bodies were entombed
over 4,000 years ago. Further testing will be done to determine
the exact period of burial.
????The recently found tomb is adjacent to Lou
Lan, one of the busiest commercial cities on the ancient Silk
Road, and Taiyang (which means "sun") Cemetery, where
mummies had been found previously.
????"It is amazing that so many ancient
bodies were found in such good shape," Wang said, adding
that further study of the mummies would aid Chinese scientists'
research on ancient Xinjiang and the development of civilization
in central Asia.
????(People's Daily 02/26/2001)
|
