The Beauty of Xiaohe

She is 3,800 years old, but she still turns heads. The mummified remains of a Caucasian woman, found along the Silk Road in western China, will be part of an exhibit "Secrets of the Silk Road: Mystery Mummies of China," commencing 27 March 2010, at Santa Ana, California's Bowers Museum. That is a high resolution photo of her, above, and I invite you to download and examine it in detail. Quite simply remarkable, in every respect.

I have been endlessly fascinated by this story, which really originates a few years back with Jeannine Davis-Kimball (actually, it goes back to around 1895, to Sven Hedin, and Aurel Stein, but it is Davis-Kimball's popularization efforts we are discussing). It is one of the most significant stories of the twentieth century, but because it raises such a sensitive issue in Han China, we don't hear about it as much as we should. The sensitivity arises because the Tarim Basin mummies are indisputable evidence of Caucasian presence in northwestern China before that of the Chinese themselves.

What attracts me is the evidence that seems to indicate these people were shamans -- possibly a tribe or clan of magicians. According to one commentator:

"Some of the mummies were buried in woven plaids which I understand are remarkably similar to the clan plaids worn by the people who eventually settled in northern Scotland. Some of the mummies (female and male), possibly shamans, tentatively identified as such because of the grave goods with which they were buried, were uncovered wearing tall pointed hats made of felt - similar to how we depict "witches" in the west today (think of the hat worn by the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 movie classic "The Wizard of Oz") - in addition to small woven cloth or felt bags filled with medicinal herbs (including cannabis) and herbs prized for their magical qualities, as well as other talismans. If my memory serves, a few of the 'shamans' were buried with colored throwing sticks -- perhaps for use in divination?"

Indeed it is the hats that first attracted me to these mummies. I vividly recall seeing one of the Tarim Basin mummies wearing a black "witch" hat almost exactly like the one from Wizard of Oz. -- the so-called "Witch of Subeshi." When I saw her, my heart skipped a beat.  It seemed so familiar. I like witches very much, you know? In the photo above, you see another sort found in the graves that is most interesting when compared to the common "lama's hat" we all recognize. I also note the presence of peaked caps or hats that have an uncanny resemblance to the seppelhut one always sees at Oktoberfest.

The seppelhut, in turn, bear some resemblance to that hats sometimes worn by Tibetan black magicians. Even the colors are the same: grey, with blue and white trim, although they are configured differently.

Jeannine Davis-Kimball is not without controversy, but I enjoy her work immensely. If you spend a little time with Google, on her name, you will not be disappointed. Also, I want to recommend a book by Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Mummies of Urumchi, which goes into all of this with more science than speculation.

I just know in advance I'm going to hear from Don Croner on this one.

I also found the following to be of considerable interest, particularly when one contrasts the genetic archaeology with the conventional, physical archaeology. This is from Taiwan Today:

Present-day India is the major geographical source of Asian populations, according to a paper published Dec. 11 in the international scientific journal “Science.”
The paper, the result of a five-year study involving 90 scientists from 10 nations, directly challenges the prevailing scientific view that human migration into Asia proceeded along two main routes, one located up north and the other down south.
According to the paper, after moving out of India human populations moved first in an eastward and then in a northward direction.
The conclusions were based on blood samples drawn from 1,928 participants belonging to 73 ethnic groups in Asia. From Taiwan, blood samples were taken from 48 people of Southern Min ancestry and 32 of Hakka ancestry.
The results show that the haplotype of the Southern Min population in Taiwan and that of the Southern Min population in Singapore are almost identical, according to Chen Chien-hsiun, an assistant research scientist at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at the Academia Sinica.
Based on these findings, it is certain that the Southern Min Taiwanese and the Southern Min Singaporeans both emigrated out of the southern parts of China, Chen added.
The haplotype of the Hakka population in Taiwan is also extremely similar to the haplotype of certain tribes in southern China, said Chen. This shows that the Taiwanese Hakka population emigrated from southern China, he said.
Genetic variations among different groups show that after human beings reached Asia, they used India as a new starting point and from there moved eastward along the sea coasts and northward up the Asian continent, the scientist said.
Some things are not recorded in history, but they are recorded in genetics. When one studies history through genetics one is engaged in “genetic archaeology,” he said.

I added emphasis to the above quote, to highlight some interesting aspects of the study. Obviously, the genetic evidence can reach back farther than our 3,800 year old beauty. I do know they have done genetic studies using these mummies, but I haven't seen the precise results.

UPDATED: See our latest post, Visit With the Beauty of Xiaohe, reporting on the Bowers Museum exhibition.