Red Haired Mummies of China

Red Haired Mummies of China

from BurlingtonNews Website

A Tocharian man with red-blond hair; his clear European features still visible after nearly 3,500 years in his desert grave in China.

Recent excavations in the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang province have uncovered more than 100 naturally mummified corpses of people who lived there between 4,000 and 2,400 years ago, indicating that the Aryan race of red and blonde hair with blue eyes lived in this area at one time.

The bodies were amazingly well preserved by the arid climate, and according to the New York Times:

"...archaeologists could hardly believe what they saw."

The mummies had long noses and skulls, blond or red hair, thin lips, deepest eyes, and other unmistakably Aryan features. Dr. Victor H. Mair of the University of Pennsylvania said,

"Because the Tarim Basin Caucasoid corpses are almost certainly representatives of the Indo-European family, and because they date from a time period early enough to have a bearing on the expansion of the Indo-European people from their homeland, it is thought that they will play a crucial role in determining just where that might have been."

One such mummy of a teenaged girl with blond hair and blue yes, found in a cave, has become quite a tourist attraction in Beijing. She has been nicknamed "The Lady of Tarim" and she is on display to throngs of museum visitors in the Chinese capital.

Apparently she was a princess or a priestess of some kind over 3,000 years ago, for she was buried in fine embroidered garments of wool and leather, along with beautiful jewelry, jars and ornaments of gold, silver, jade and onyx. Her remains are in such a remarkable state of preservation that the dead girl looks as if she were just sleeping.

A Tocharian female mummy with long flaxen blond hair, perfectly preserved in ponytails. Items of weaved material, identical to Celtic cloth

One of the most famous Tocharian mummies found, the so-called "Beauty of Loulan"; and her face, to the right, as reconstructed by an artist.

Close-up of a Tocharian male, and to the right is a swastika decoration found on a clay bowl recovered from the Tocharian grave sites. The swastika was part of the original Indo-European language, meaning "well being". It seems that this symbol was universally accepted as such.