I would like to ask a few questions on the Chinese Mummies.

1. How and where were they found?
2. How were the bodies preserved?
3. What did these bodies reveal about the time in which they lived?

Are you referring to the Caucasoid Tarim mummies, which have been dated as being as much as 4,000 years old? They were discovered in Xinjiang by various archaelogists, both Chinese and Western starting with the Swedish expeditions of Sven Hedin at the turn of the 20th century. In 1988, Victor Mair of the University of Pennsylvania 're-discovered' the mummies in the Urumqi Museum of Xinjiang, and began a major research project into their ethnic origins.

The mummies were corpses that had been preserved by the dry air in the Tarim Basin. Even elaborate tattoos on their faces and hands could still be seen. Evidence such as clothing material resembling Scottish tweed suggest that they came from Europe, but Mair's current hypothesis is that they migrated from south-central Siberia (the Altai-Yenisei area, just north of the Tarim Basin), and were peripheral members of the Indo-European Tocharian language group. This means that in prehistoric times there was already extensive contact between Caucasoids and Mongoloids in the Tarim region.

[Edit: "7,000 years" changed to "4,000 years". - 23 February 2008]

What I mean is the mummies that were found along/near the Silk Road, whom were actually European and not Chinese.

Those mummies that Yun just described are those that you're asking about. Those European people were called the Tocharians, the Taklamakan desert in the Tarim Basin was the route of the ancient Silk Road.

But, how exactly were they found? Accident, if so, what lead to it?

And, I don't understand the dry air. How did this preserve the bodies?

Just a few random questions I was wondering about..

I've just got back from the local library, and really rather little to pull from from the history section other than the usual WW1/WW2 stuff. However I came across this book and wonder if anyone out there has read it.

'The Mummies of Urumchi; Did Europeans Migrate to China 4,000 Years Ago?', by Elizabeth Wayland Barber (MacMillan, 1999).

Yes, that's a good book on the topic. Another one (which is probably more technical on the lingistics aspect and harder to read) is Victor Mair and JP Mallory, "The Tarim Mummies".

But, how exactly were they found? Accident, if so, what lead to it?

And, I don't understand the dry air. How did this preserve the bodies?

Just a few random questions I was wondering about..

the area in which these caucasoid mummies were found is not part of China proper, people put far too much implications in these.

these people didn't migrate to China, they migrated to the tarim basin which would eventually be controlled by China.

anyway, for a thread on CHINESE mummification

http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=840

Anyone else have anything to add?

on dry air...

you ever seen a dead earthworm? They're all dried and shrivelled
or a dead lizard baked by the sun. It's like that, they dry up, there's not enough moisture to support something to rot the body

I heard that the mummies dated more recently had bi-racial features, showing that these caucasians were integrated into the population over time

what exactly are you basing this on? the tarim basin where these caucasoid mummies were found were added to the Chinese empire long after their civilization began to die out

I've heard it was the British-Hungarian scholar Marc Aurel Stein who discovered them in 1895, but rather considered them as oddities while searching for antiques or manuscripts. I don't know if they were known by Chinese scholars before this.? Probably...

"The Mummies of Urumchi" by Elizabeth Barber should be an informative read. Am reading it right now.

How did the Tocharins (Celts) arrive into China? For how long did they stay.

You mean Tocharians during Han dynasty? They are celts?

I remember reading about they have certain cultural similarities with celts.

The ancestors of the easternmost Indo-Europeans (Yuezhi/Tocharians, possibly also Wusun) appear to have migrated to the Tarim Basin around 2000 BCE. Most were driven west by the Xiongnu around the 1st to 2nd century BCE, invading or settling in Central Asian regions. The remainder scattered around Central Asia and fell under domination of regional forces. Their distinctiveness as a people appears to have given way to assimilation, mainly Turkization, by the 9th century AD.

Due to the fact that one of the main found (the Cherchen man) a 6 feet tall man has the clothing pattern, hair style simlar to the Celtic people in Europe (Bristish Isles). Also dolmen-like shape of rock around the Cherchen man tribe area are similar to those in Britain, same with the arrangement in circle of these dolmens. There is speculation that these Indo_european were not probably Celts yet (to the sense of the Celts in Britain) becuase these are 4000 years old. Rather the speculation is that the Indo-European just migrated from their heartland somewhere near the Caspian sea areas betw Asia and Europe. Those migrated West became the Celts, those went north becomes the germanics tribes, those moved east ended up in the Tarim Basin.

Tocharian is an absolutely fascinating language. an Indo European language that migrated west and had very late contact with the Indian languages. For those who are interested, the link below seems to have the best explanation of the morphology and origins of the language.

Tocharian online at University of Texas at Austin


If anyone knows anything more about the subject and the people who spoke it, I would be fascinated to hear more.

I'm not entirely sure; they were certainly around as late as the Tang Dynasty, since Chinese men flocked to taverns that had blond-haired, green-eyed Tocharian women as wine servers, dancers, and singers, some feeling compelled to write poetry on the matter. Lol.

Eric (En Rui)

Hi William,

When I tried to click on that link, I got an error. Could you check it out? Thank you! I am interested in this subject as well.

I am a little unconvinced about the assumption that mummies as much as 7,000 years old belonged to people who spoke Tocharian. Most of the Tocharian documents we have date to the 6th to 8th centuries AD, and the Tocharian language shows considerable influence by other languages to the West. It would be difficult to argue that the the language speaker had remained in place this long, but also been subject to significant morphology from contact with languages to the West which date to later than 7,000 years ago.

Are my beliefs on the linguistic morphology wrong, or is there an issue on dating the mummies, or are we perhaps dealing with different caucasoid peoples in the same area separated by significant differences in time?

Fireball, I am having trouble inserting the link for some reason. The URL is:

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/tokol-0-X.html

Perhaps you might be kind enough to insert it for me or drop me a PM telling me how I am stuffing up!

Don't worry, it worked! I am mystified.

I think there lurked a spirit of the enemy of the ancient Tocharians!!! Btw, that is me yelling, "Ah.....! There is a Ghost!!!!!"

It seems the figure of 7,000 years was incorrect, although I cannot remember now where I got it from. The oldest Tarim mummies are dated to around 2,000 BC, and are therefore no more than 4,000 years old.

Mair and Mallory postulated a Proto-Tocharian culture identified with the Afanasevo archaeological culture of the Altai-Yenisei region. They theorize that the Proto-Tocharians migrated south into the the Tarim Basin around 2000 BC, while the Indo-Iranian speaking Saka later migrated into the Tarim from the west during the first millennium BC. They also argue that the Proto-Tocharians came into contact with Indo-Iranians on the northwest edge of the Tarim Basin during their southward migration, and borrowed some Saka Iranian loanwords in the process. This, they argue, explains why different parts of the Tarim came to be dominated by Tocharian and Iranian languages, and why there is relatively little linguistic affinity between the two language groups despite evidence of some early Iranian loanwords in the Tocharian languages.

That makes a bit more sense. I am putting a bit of effort into this as I am going to make a presentation to the archaeological society of which I am a member. I shall re-read Barber's book nonetheless.

I used to take it for granted that the Yuezhi 月氏 were Tocharian-speakers, because this was the usual assumption made by historians ever since the discovery of the Tocharian language. But after reading the book The Tarim Mummies by Mair and Mallory, I now know that there is no archaeological evidence to prove whether the Yuezhi were originally Tocharian-speakers and switched to an Iranian language after their migration to Bactria (where they founded the Kushan kingdom), or were already Iranian-speakers long before they were driven out of the Gansu region by the Xiongnu.

You could also try reading Mair and Mallory if you have time, although their book (while very well-illustrated) is not easy reading.

[Note: I've merged the mummies thread and the Tocharians thread, since they are related.]

My personal opinion is that the Taklamakan mummies should not be generally taken as Tocharian mummies. The mummies discovered can be roughly divided into two categories: Shang-era and Han-era. The ealier mummies are dated back to 3800 years ago, which may be linked to the proto-Indo-European migration from Kurgan hypothesis; the later mummies are more related to Scythian-Sarmatian culture, which can be called Tocharian in some sense, since the identified Toxri script has been mistaken as the Greek record of Tocharoi. Obviously, we can assume there was direct connection between those ancient mummies, but we must consider the ethnical formation in thousands years in such an ethnical nexus like Tarim basin.

I agree with your opinions about this matter. I think there are still no conclusive data to connect the two groups of mummies. We need more factual evidences in order to decide one way or another.