Research Catalog

The mummies of Ürümchi

Title
The mummies of Ürümchi / Elizabeth Wayland Barber.
Author
Barber, E. J. W., 1940-
Publication
New York : W.W. Norton & Company, 1999.

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TextRequest in advance GN778.32.C5 B37 1999Off-site

Details

Description
240 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color); 25 cm
Summary
  • In the museums of Urumchi, the wind-swept regional capital of the Uyghur Autonomous Region in Western China, a collection of ancient mummies date back as far as 4,000 years - contemporary to the famous Egyptian mummies, but even more beautifully preserved, especially their clothing. Surprisingly, these prehistoric people are not Asian but Caucasoid - tall and large-nosed and blond with thick beards and round eyes (probably blue). What were these blond Caucasians doing in the heart of Asia?
  • Where did they come from and what language did they speak? Might they be related to a "lost tribe" of Indo-Europeans known from later inscriptions? Few gifts are to be found in the graves of Urumchi, making it difficult for archaeologists to pinpoint cultural connections from clues offered by pottery and tools. But their clothes - woolens that rarely survive more than a few centurieshave been preserved as brightly hued as the day they were woven.
  • Elizabeth Wayland Barber describes these remarkable mummies, their clothing, their sheepherding ways, and their path to this remote, mysterious, and forbidding place. She pieces together their history and peculiar Western connections from both what she saw in Urumchi and the testimony of explorers who traveled along the Silk Road a century earlier.
Subject
  • Mummies > Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu
  • Bronze age > Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu
  • Textile fabrics, Prehistoric > Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu
  • Tarim Basin (China) > Antiquities
  • Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu (China) > Antiquities
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
1. Mystery Mummies -- 2. A Man with Ten Hats -- 3. Plus Three Women and a Baby -- 4. The "Beauty of Loulan" -- 5. The Early Explorers -- 6. Tokharians and Other Hairy Barbarians -- 7. Hami and Hallstatt -- 8. The Oasis Hoppers and Their Kin -- 9. Pulses in the Heart of a Continent -- 10. Sands of the Silk Road, Sands of Time.
ISBN
0393045218
LCCN
98018958
OCLC
  • 39093534
  • ocm39093534
Owning Institutions
Columbia University Libraries