Urumqi museum ....

This is the famous Loulan Beauty I wanted to see. She was of Caucasian origin which has implications for the current people of the region, the Uyghur. More info http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-asia/beauty-loulan-and-tattooed-mummies-tarim-basin-001227

Since reading about mummies discovered buried in the deserts of the Western Region, I have been wanting to visit the museum at Urumqi to see in particular the ‘Loulan Beauty’. And I did! It was a fantastic visit, a marvellous new building and excellent displays many with English translations. Some of what was on display I had read about and that helped enormously. 

These and other graves were only recently discovered.

There appears to be some tattooing on his face. He is similarly of Europoid origins

The displays traced forward in time from Palaeolithic to Neolithic periods, around 1000 BC. What was of particular interest to me was what Archaeologists discovered in 1980s when excavating in the desert. They found some significant graves, significant in that they revealed the mummified remains of people of ancient Europoid/Caucasoid origins dating back up to 4000 years. Amongst their findings were hunting sticks very similar to our Australia aborigines’ boomerangs as well as rock paintings using the spray-stencil techniques as well as what looks like the X-ray style so similar to our aborigines only newer! These items and paintings date from ~2500 years ago. Interesting! All part of the complex puzzle of the history of humans.

People wore knitted hat 4 Millenia ago. It’s cool to wear them now. Get those needles clacking.

There were others like this. So similar to our aboriginal boomerangs.

And we thought we invented macrame in the 1970s - we’ll think again!