Prof finds white mummies in China

Victor Mair has always had a passion for the past. But his discovery in 1987 that Caucasian bodies had been dug up in China added new vigor to that passion and led him to reconsider the nature of ancient civilizations. Mair, a professor of Chinese Languages and Literature, came to the University in 1979 -- the same time that the Chinese government began to unearth the mummies. He said when he first came across the well-preserved corpses in a museum in the region of Xinjiang in China, he almost could not believe that they were real. "I thought that it was some kind of ploy to get tourists, because they were saying [the bodies] dated to 1000 B.C.E, and they looked like they had been buried a couple weeks ago," Mair said. He attributed the "freeze-dried" condition of the bodies to the hot, dry climate of the desert region in which the Caucasians lived. When they died, the moisture in their bodies would evaporate very quickly, preventing most bacterial decay. Even more remarkable than the condition of the corpses, according to Mair, was the fact that the unearthed bodies showed that Caucasians had inhabited China from 2000 B.C. until the ninth century. The majority of the people who live in Xinjiang today exhibit Mongoloid rather than Caucasoid features, Mair said. "The mystery is how did [the Caucasians] get there and where did they come from," he added. Mair said he suspects that they were Iranian-speaking Indo-Europeans who had migrated from the West. However, he said that since no written records exist for that period, he cannot be certain. Mair said many aspects of the mummified corpses and their graves have provided useful information about the type of lives these people led. "Many people were buried with a little basket next to their left ear, and in the basket were grains of wheat," he explained. "So this means that they had a sense of agriculture." No weapons were found in the graves-- indicating that they were a peaceful people, Mair added. The finely-woven woolen clothing found on the bodies led Mair to believe that the Caucasians herded sheep and goats. Mair said he also believes that the Caucasians did not simply die out, but rather were "absorbed" by the Uyghurs, a Turkish-speaking people who constitute the major ethnic group in Central Asia today. "Just looking at the Uyghur population, you see a lot of resemblances to the Europeans and Mediterranean peoples," Mair said. According to Mair, this archeological find could change how people think about ancient civilizations. The discovery of the mummies has provided evidence that supports the idea that civilizations in countries such as India, Greece, Rome and China were not as isolated as many scholars had originally believed. "Long-distance migrations, long-distance trade, and even just simple wanderlust have been going on for thousands of years," Mair said. "This project is showing that the ancient peoples as much as moderns liked to move around on the face of the earth." Mair added that the aspect of his findings that he enjoys the most is the fact that it provides a bridge between the East and the West. "Here you have people who are filling up what used to be thought of as a vacuum in terms of East-West communication," he said. Mair's fascination with the mummies themselves though stems from his attraction to the past -- which he said he has had since his college days. "I feel like I'm reaching back in the past and recreating their life," Mair said. "When I look at [the mummies] or look at their clothing, I don't just imagine what life was like for them -- I feel like I'm actually almost merging with them somehow."

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