#Central Asia | West Asia

[xtruss]

Who Were The Tarim Basin Mummies? Even Scientists Were Surprised. The Enigmatic, Extremely Well-preserved Mummies Still Defy Explanation—and Draw Controversy.

— By Erin Blakemore | September 15, 2023

Hundreds of bodies have been excavated from cemeteries like this one around the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang, a region of Western China. Known as the Tarim Basin mummies, these people lived some 4,000 years ago—and their ancient DNA has yielded surprising insights. Photograph By Wenying LI, XinJiang Institute of Cultural Relics And Archaeology

Though they died thousands of years ago, hundreds of bodies excavated in East Asia’s Tarim Basin look remarkably alive. They retain the hairstyles, clothing, and accoutrements of a long-past culture—one that once seemed to suggest they were migrant Indo-Europeans who settled in what is now China thousands of years ago.

But the mummies’ seemingly perfect state of preservation wasn’t their only surprise. When modern DNA research revealed the preserved bodies were people indigenous to the Tarim Basin—yet genetically distinct from other nearby populations—the Tarim Basin mummies became even more enigmatic. Today, researchers still ask questions about their cultural practices, their daily lives, and their role in the spread of modern humanity across the globe.

How Were The Tarim Basin Mummies Found?

Buried in a variety of cemeteries around the basin as long as 4,000 years ago, the naturally mummified corpses were first unearthed by European explorers in the early 20th century. Over time, more and more of the Tarim bodies were unearthed, along with their spectacular cultural relics. To date, hundreds have been found. The earliest of the mummies are about 2,100 years old, while more recent mummies have been dated to about 500 B.C.

One of the most famous mummies found in the Tarim Basin is the Princess of Xiaohe, also known as the Beauty of Xiaohe. Named for the cemetery where her body was found, she is remarkably well-preserved even down to her eyelashes. Photograph By Wenying LI, XinJiang Institute of Cultural Relics And Archaeology

Who Really Were The Tarim Basin Mummies?

At first, the mummies’ Western-like attire and European-like appearance prompted hypotheses that they were the remains of an Indo-European group of migrant people with roots in Europe, perhaps related to Bronze-Age herders from Siberia or farmers in what is now Iran.

They had blond, brown, and red hair, large noses, and wore bright, sometimes elaborate clothing fashioned from wool, furs, or cowhide. Some wore pointed, witch-like hats and some of the clothing was made of felted or woven cloth, suggesting ties to Western European culture.

Still others wore plaid reminiscent of the Celts—perhaps most notably one of the mummies known as Chärchän Man, who stood over six feet tall, had red hair and a full beard, and was buried over a thousand years ago in a tartan skirt.

Another of the most famous of the bodies is that of the so-called “Princess” or “Beauty” of Xiaohe, a 3,800-year-old woman with light hair, high cheekbones, and long, still-preserved eyelashes who seems to be smiling in death. Though she wore a large felt hat and fine clothing and even jewelry in death, it is unclear what position she may have occupied in her society.

But the 2021 study of 13 of the mummies’ ancient DNA led to the current consensus that they belonged to an isolated group that lived throughout the now desert-like region during the Bronze Age, adopting their neighbors’ farming practices but remaining distinct in culture and genetics.

Scientists concluded that the mummies were descendants of Ancient North Eurasians, a relatively small group of ancient hunter-gatherers who migrated to Central Asia from West Asia and who have genetic links to modern Europeans and Native Americans.

How Were They Mummified?

These bodies were not mummified intentionally as part of any burial ritual. Rather, the dry, salty environment of the Tarim Basin—which contains the Taklimakan Desert, one of the world’s largest—allowed the bodies to decay slowly, and sometimes minimally. The extreme winter cold of the area is also thought to have helped along their preservation.

How Were They Buried?

Many bodies were interred in “boat-shaped wooden coffins covered with cattle hides and marked by timber poles or oars,” according to researchers. The discovery of the herb ephedra in the burial sites suggests it had either a medical or religious significance—but what that religion might have been, or why some burials involve concentric rings of wooden stakes, is still unclear.

Mummified corpses were first unearthed in the Tarim Basin by European explorers in the early 20th century. Their Western-like appearance and clothing originally led researchers to believe these ancient people were migrants from Europe—but DNA later debunked that theory. Photograph By Wenying LI, XinJiang Institute of Cultural Relics And Archaeology

What Did They Eat?

Masks, twigs, possibly phallic objects, and animal bones found at the mummies’ cemeteries provide a tantalizing view of their daily lives and rituals. Though most questions about their culture remain unanswered, the burials did point to their diets and the fact that they were farmers. The mummies were interred with barley, millet, and wheat, even necklaces featuring the oldest cheese ever found. This indicates that they not only farmed, but raised ruminant animals.

What Were Their Daily Lives Like?

The Tarim Basin dwellers were genetically distinct. But their practices, from burial to cheesemaking, and their clothing, which reflects techniques and artistry practiced in far-off places at the time, seem to show they mixed with, and learned from, other cultures, adopting their practices over time and incorporating them into a distinct civilization.

Researchers now believe their daily lives involved everything from farming ruminant animals to metalworking and basketmaking—helped along by the fact that the now-desolate desert of the Tarim Basin region was once much greener and had abundant freshwater.

Researchers also believe that the Tarim Basin residents traded and interacted with other people in what would eventually become a critical corridor on the Silk Road, linking East and West in the arid desert.

But archaeologists still have much to learn about what daily life was like for these ancient humans, including who they traded with, what religious beliefs they adopted, and whether their society was socially stratified.

Most of the bodies were found buried in boat-shaped coffins like this one, with the site typically marked by oars. This coffin is covered with a cattle hide, suggesting that the Tarim Basin people raised cattle and other ruminant animals. Photograph By Wenying LI, XinJiang Institute of Cultural Relics And Archaeology

Why Are The Tarim Basin Mummies Controversial?

The amazingly preserved mummies have long fascinated archaeologists. But the Tarim Basin mummies have also become political flashpoints. The Tarim Basin is located in the modern-day Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, land claimed by China’s Uyghur minority. Uyghur nationalists claim the mummies are their forbears, but the Chinese government refutes this and has been reluctant to allow scientists to study the mummies or look at their ancient DNA.

In 2011, China withdrew a group of the mummies from a traveling exhibition, claiming they were too fragile to transport. Some research about the mummies’ DNA has been criticized as downplaying the region’s distinctness in support of China’s attempts to assimilate Uyghur people. Just as more remains to be learned about the enigmatic mummies, their future as political and national symbols remains disputed too.

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[ladyimaginarium]

reminder that asia is. fucking massive. btw

[diemelusine]

Photograph of Alim Khan, Emir of Bukhara (1911) by Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky. Library of Congress.

[bfpnola]

Hey! We're back with part 2! Better Future Program (@bfpnola) is officially looking for youth volunteers between the ages of 14 and 25 for our Advocacy Committee. Don't see a role that fits your identity or beliefs? Don't worry! We've got SO MANY opportunities, we had to split them up across multiple posts! Feel free to check our Linktr.ee for more positions or our "Apply Now!" highlight on Instagram in the coming weeks!

And if you don’t know who we are? Welcome! BFP is Black-, queer-, and woman-owned nonprofit, entirely run by youth! Since 2016, we’ve been accepting volunteers not just from Bulbancha (so-called New Orleans, Louisiana), but WORLDWIDE! Our mission is to globally expand peer-led political education, support, and imagination for marginalized youth!

To fulfill this goal, we offer over 3,000 free resources through our Liberation Library, design and execute mutual aid-based projects, and offer the safe space young activists need to ask questions and grow. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, check out our International Youth Leadership Positions page in our bio!

Image description below.

[ID: All slides share the same background. There is a repeating list of BFP’s guiding principles and core beliefs in translucent, all-white, capitalized letters. BFP’s guiding principles include youth-centricity, self-liberation, transparency, accountability, horizontality, community, and intersectionality. BFP’s core beliefs include the right to organize, educational equity, youth liberation, anti-racism, religious liberty, disability justice, climate action, decolonization, gender equity, queer/LGBTQ+ liberation, bodily autonomy, fat liberation, abolition, caste abolition, anti-authoritarianism, and anti-capitalism. A burnt orange to amber gradient overlays this list. A bold, white square frames the image with a white arrow pointing right in the bottom right corner.

Slide 1 reads: “LINK IN BIO. APPLY NOW! INTERNATIONAL YOUTH LEADERSHIP POSITIONS! REMOTE & IN-PERSON.” There is a BFP logo in the lefthand corner and the words “Part Two” in the righthand corner, as this is the first of multiple posts showcasing open leadership positions.

Slide 2 reads: "Advocacy Committee: Africana Advocates

Responsibilities Include:

Develop and execute your very own political education workshops related to African countries and their diasporas

Build local mutual aid networks to meet the basic needs of those of African descent

Provide consultation to other marginalized youth to promote awareness and appreciation

Time Commitment:

Other than our weekly 1.5-2 hr meeting, usually on Sundays, you're free to design your schedule around your tasks!

Requirements/Eligibility:

BFP prioritizes the leadership of marginalized communities. Tap the International Leadership Positions page in our Linktr.ee for more information! Link in bio @bfpnola :)" Slide 3 reads: "Advocacy Committee: Indigenous Advocates

Responsibilities Include:

Develop and execute your very own political education workshops related to your Indigenous community

Build local mutual aid networks to meet the basic needs of various Indigenous communities

Provide consultation to other marginalized youth to promote awareness and appreciation

Time Commitment:

Other than our weekly 1.5-2 hr meeting, usually on Sundays, you're free to design your schedule around your tasks!

Requirements/Eligibility:

BFP prioritizes the leadership of marginalized communities. Tap the International Leadership Positions page in our Linktr.ee for more information! Link in bio @bfpnola :)" Slide 4 reads: "Advocacy Committee: Pacific Islander Advocates

Responsibilities Include:

Develop and execute your very own political education workshops related to the Pacific Islands and their diasporas

Build local mutual aid networks to meet the basic needs of various Pacific Islander communities

Provide consultation to other marginalized youth to promote awareness and appreciation

Time Commitment:

Other than our weekly 1.5-2 hr meeting, usually on Sundays, you're free to design your schedule around your tasks!

Requirements/Eligibility:

BFP prioritizes the leadership of marginalized communities. Tap the International Leadership Positions page in our Linktr.ee for more information! Link in bio @bfpnola :)" Slide 5 reads: "Advocacy Committee: Central Asian Advocates

Responsibilities Include:

Develop and execute your very own political education workshops related to Central Asia and its diasporas

Build local mutual aid networks to meet the basic needs of various Central Asian communities

Provide consultation to other marginalized youth to promote awareness and appreciation

Time Commitment:

Other than our weekly 1.5-2 hr meeting, usually on Sundays, you're free to design your schedule around your tasks!

Requirements/Eligibility:

BFP prioritizes the leadership of marginalized communities. Tap the International Leadership Positions page in our Linktr.ee for more information! Link in bio @bfpnola :)" Slide 6 reads: "Advocacy Committee: East Asian Advocates

Responsibilities Include:

Develop and execute your very own political education workshops related to East Asia and its diasporas

Build local mutual aid networks to meet the basic needs of various East Asian communities

Provide consultation to other marginalized youth to promote awareness and appreciation

Time Commitment:

Other than our weekly 1.5-2 hr meeting, usually on Sundays, you're free to design your schedule around your tasks!

Requirements/Eligibility:

BFP prioritizes the leadership of marginalized communities. Tap the International Leadership Positions page in our Linktr.ee for more information! Link in bio @bfpnola :)" Slide 7 reads: "Advocacy Committee: South Asian Advocates

Responsibilities Include:

Develop and execute your very own political education workshops related to South Asia and its diasporas

Build local mutual aid networks to meet the basic needs of various South Asian communities

Provide consultation to other marginalized youth to promote awareness and appreciation

Time Commitment:

Other than our weekly 1.5-2 hr meeting, usually on Sundays, you're free to design your schedule around your tasks!

Requirements/Eligibility:

BFP prioritizes the leadership of marginalized communities. Tap the International Leadership Positions page in our Linktr.ee for more information! Link in bio @bfpnola :)" Slide 8 reads: "Advocacy Committee: Southeast Asian Advocates

Responsibilities Include:

Develop and execute your very own political education workshops related to Southeast Asia and its diasporas

Build local mutual aid networks to meet the basic needs of various Southeast Asian communities

Provide consultation to other marginalized youth to promote awareness and appreciation

Time Commitment:

Other than our weekly 1.5-2 hr meeting, usually on Sundays, you're free to design your schedule around your tasks!

Requirements/Eligibility:

BFP prioritizes the leadership of marginalized communities. Tap the International Leadership Positions page in our Linktr.ee for more information! Link in bio @bfpnola :)" Slide 9 reads: "Advocacy Committee: West Asian Advocates

Responsibilities Include:

Develop and execute your very own political education workshops related to West Asia and its diasporas

Build local mutual aid networks to meet the basic needs of various West Asian communities

Provide consultation to other marginalized youth to promote awareness and appreciation

Time Commitment:

Other than our weekly 1.5-2 hr meeting, usually on Sundays, you're free to design your schedule around your tasks!

Requirements/Eligibility:

BFP prioritizes the leadership of marginalized communities. Tap the International Leadership Positions page in our Linktr.ee for more information! Link in bio @bfpnola :)" Slide 10 reads: "Advocacy Committee: Latine Advocates

Responsibilities Include:

Develop and execute your very own political education workshops related to Latin countries and their diasporas

Build local mutual aid networks to meet the basic needs of various Latin communities

Provide consultation to other marginalized youth to promote awareness and appreciation

Time Commitment:

Other than our weekly 1.5-2 hr meeting, usually on Sundays, you're free to design your schedule around your tasks!

Requirements/Eligibility:

BFP prioritizes the leadership of marginalized communities. Tap the International Leadership Positions page in our Linktr.ee for more information! Link in bio @bfpnola :)" /End ID.]

[redpomegranateblossoms]

I was thinking about chehelgis hair the other day (a traditional hairstyle of Iran and central asia where hair is braided into a sacred number of braids, often 40).

[fatehbaz]

On May 28, 1914, the Institut für Schiffs-und Tropenkrankheiten (Institute for Maritime and Tropical Diseases, ISTK) in Hamburg began operations in a complex of new brick buildings on the bank of the Elb. The buildings were designed by Fritz Schumacher, who had become the Head of Hamburg’s building department (Leiter des Hochbauamtes) in 1909 after a “flood of architectural projects” accumulated following the industrialization of the harbor in the 1880s and the “new housing and working conditions” that followed. The ISTK was one of these projects, connected to the port by its [...] mission: to research and heal tropical illnesses; [...] to support the Hamburg Port [...]; and to support endeavors of the German Empire overseas.

First established in 1900 by Bernhard Nocht, chief of the Port Medical Service, the ISTK originally operated out of an existing building, but by 1909, when the Hamburg Colonial Institute became its parent organization (and Schumacher was hired by the Hamburg Senate), the operations of the ISTK had outgrown [...]. [I]ts commission by the city was an opportunity for Schumacher to show how he could contribute to guiding the city’s economic and architectural growth in tandem, and for Nocht, an opportunity to establish an unprecedented spatial paradigm for the field of Tropical Medicine that anchored the new frontier of science in the German Empire. [...]

[There was a] shared drive to contribute to the [...] wealth of Hamburg within the context of its expanding global network [...]. [E]ach discipline [...] architecture and medicine were participating in a shared [...] discursive operation. [...]

---

The brick used on the ISTK façades was key to Schumacher’s larger Städtebau plan for Hamburg, which envisioned the city as a vehicle for a “harmonious” synthesis between aesthetics and economy. [...] For Schumacher, brick [was significantly preferable] [...]. Used by [...] Hamburg architects [over the past few decades], who acquired their penchant for neo-gothic brickwork at the Hanover school, brick had both a historical presence and aesthetic pedigree in Hamburg [...]. [T]his material had already been used in Die Speicherstadt, a warehouse district in Hamburg where unequal social conditions had only grown more exacerbated [...]. Die Speicherstadt was constructed in three phases [beginning] in 1883 [...]. By serving the port, the warehouses facilitated the expansion and security of Hamburg’s wealth. [...] Yet the collective profits accrued to the city by these buildings [...] did not increase economic prosperity and social equity for all. [...] [A] residential area for harbor workers was demolished to make way for the warehouses. After the contract for the port expansion was negotiated in 1881, over 20,000 people were pushed out of their homes and into adjacent areas of the city, which soon became overcrowded [...]. In turn, these [...] areas of the city [...] were the worst hit by the Hamburg cholera epidemic of 1892, the most devastating in Europe that year. The 1892 cholera epidemic [...] articulated the growing inability of the Hamburg Senate, comprising the city’s elite, to manage class relationships [...] [in such] a city that was explicitly run by and for the merchant class [...].

In Hamburg, the response to such an ugly disease of the masses was the enforcement of quarantine methods that pushed the working class into the suburbs, isolated immigrants on an island, and separated the sick according to racial identity.

In partnership with the German Empire, Hamburg established new hygiene institutions in the city, including the Port Medical Service (a progenitor of the ISTK). [...] [T]he discourse of [creating the school for tropical medicine] centered around city building and nation building, brick by brick, mark by mark.

---

Just as the exterior condition of the building was, for Schumacher, part of a much larger plan for the city, the program of the building and its interior were part of the German Empire and Tropical Medicine’s much larger interest in controlling the health and wealth of its nation and colonies. [...]

Yet the establishment of the ISTK marked a critical shift in medical thinking [...]. And while the ISTK was not the only institution in Europe to form around the conception and perceived threat of tropical diseases, it was the first to build a facility specifically to support their “exploration and combat” in lockstep, as Nocht described it.

The field of Tropical Medicine had been established in Germany by the very same journal Nocht published his overview of the ISTK. The Archiv für Schiffs- und Tropen-Hygiene unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Pathologie und Therapie was first published in 1897, the same year that the German Empire claimed Kiaochow (northeast China) and about two years after it claimed Southwest Africa (Namibia), Cameroon, Togo, East Africa (Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda), New Guinea (today the northern part of Papua New Guinea), and the Marshall Islands; two years later, it would also claim the Caroline Islands, Palau, Mariana Islands (today Micronesia), and Samoa (today Western Samoa).

---

The inaugural journal [...] marked a paradigm shift [...]. In his opening letter, the editor stated that the aim of Tropical Medicine is to “provide the white race with a home in the tropics.” [...]

As part of the institute’s agenda to support the expansion of the Empire through teaching and development [...], members of the ISTK contributed to the Deutsches Kolonial Lexikon, a three-volume series completed in 1914 (in the same year as the new ISTK buildings) and published in 1920. The three volumes contained maps of the colonies coded to show the areas that were considered “healthy” for Europeans, along with recommended building guidelines for hospitals in the tropics. [...] "Natives" were given separate facilities [...]. The hospital at the ISTK was similarly divided according to identity. An essentializing belief in “intrinsic factors” determined by skin color, constitutive to Tropical Medicine, materialized in the building’s circulation. Potential patients were assessed in the main building to determine their next destination in the hospital. A room labeled “Farbige” (colored) - visible in both Nocht and Schumacher’s publications - shows that the hospital segregated people of color from whites. [...]

---

Despite belonging to two different disciplines [medicine and architecture], both Nocht and Schumacher’s publications articulate an understanding of health [...] that is linked to concepts of identity separating white upper-class German Europeans from others. [In] Hamburg [...] recent growth of the shipping industry and overt engagement of the German Empire in colonialism brought even more distant global connections to its port. For Schumacher, Hamburg’s presence in a global network meant it needed to strengthen its local identity and economy [by purposefully seeking to showcase "traditional" northern German neo-gothic brickwork while elevating local brick industry] lest it grow too far from its roots. In the case of Tropical Medicine at the ISTK, the “tropics” seemed to act as a foil for the European identity - a constructed category through which the European identity could redescribe itself by exclusion [...].

What it meant to be sick or healthy was taken up by both medicine and architecture - [...] neither in a vacuum.

---

All text above by: Carrie Bly. "Mediums of Medicine: The Institute for Maritime and Tropical Diseases in Hamburg". Sick Architecture series published by e-flux Architecture. November 2020. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Text within brackets added by me for clarity. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[postcardsfromwanderings]

Desert wagons, Uzbekistan

Reminiscent of a scene from the American Wild West!

[razistoricharka]

please for the love of god what js that anti balkan book (??) youre reading. how does someone manage to be racist towards white people lmaooo

Inventing Ruritania by Vesna Goldsworthy. It's an analysis of the works of british orientalism set in the balkans. "How does someone manage to be racist to white people" the definition of white people changes a lot based on what's convenient and the balkans especially as part of the ottoman empire were not conventionally seen as european.

[whats-in-a-sentence]

They had Greece, southern Iraq, and central Asia by 6000, Egypt and central Europe by 5000, and the shores of the Atlantic by 4000 (Figure 2.4). (...) The second theory says none of these things happened, because the first farmers across most of the regions shown in Figure 2.4 were not descendants of immigrants from the Hilly Flanks at all. They were local hunter-gatherers who settled down and became farmers themselves. (...) After sweeping from what is now Poland to the Paris Basin in a couple of hundred years before 5200 BCE, the wave of agricultural advance ground to a halt (Figure 2.4).

"Why the West Rules – For Now: The patterns of history and what they reveal about the future" - Ian Morris

[psychotrenny]

One day people are gonna refer to the War on Terror as the "9/11 Cinematic Universe"

[cardboardheartss]

Hiiii I’m here for the new game!!!!

I pick option 1!!!

My initials are AD!💗🥰

7oS , 5oC (KNoS) The Magician (4oW, Death rx, KoW, Judgement rx, Sun, KNoS rx & AoC)

Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan) & Africa (Burkina Faso, Cape Verde & Senegal)

[resizura]

im laughing because i just remembered the resident evil universe got fake countries called KIJUJU and PENAMSTAN

[penuswilliams]

me trying to explain to people that Asia is much larger than they think it is

[charcutieri]

Really sucks how North, Central and West Asians are almost always left out whenever people discuss Asian representation and anti-Asian racism

[thefourthhexgirl]

Żupan

A long lined garment of West or Central Asian origin which was widely worn by male nobles in the multi-ethnic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and by the Ukrainian Cossacks in the Cossack Hetmanate. It was a typical upper class male attire from the late 16th to the first half of the 18th century.