Mystery Surrounds Celtic Mummy in China

The mummy is that of a Bronze Age Celt, according to his DNA, but the mummy of Cherchen Man is from the Taklamakan Desert in western China. In the local Chinese language, the word “taklamakan” means “You come in and never come out.” And that seems to be the case.

According to Britain’s The Independent:

He looks like a Bronze Age European. In fact, he's every inch a Celt. Even his DNA says so. 

But this is no early Celt from central Scotland. This is the mummified corpse of Cherchen Man, unearthed from the scorched sands of the Taklamakan Desert in the far-flung region of Xinjiang in western China, and now housed in a new museum in the provincial capital of Urumqi. 

The extraordinary thing is that Cherchen Man was found - with the mummies of three women and a baby - in a burial site thousands of miles to the east of where the Celts established their biggest settlements in France and the British Isles. 

DNA testing confirms that he and hundreds of other mummies found in Xinjiang's Tarim Basin are of European origin. We don't know how he got there, what brought him there, or how long he and his kind lived there for. But, as the desert's name suggests, it is certain that he never came out.

His discovery provides an unexpected connection between east and west and some valuable clues to early European history. The bodies are far better preserved than the Egyptian mummies, and it is sad to see the infants on display; to see how the baby was wrapped in a beautiful brown cloth tied with red and blue cord, then a blue stone placed on each eye. Beside it was a baby's milk bottle with a teat, made from a sheep's udder.

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Ming Dynasty Mummy Remarkably Preserved

The remarkably preserved mummy of a high-ranking woman believed to be from the Ming Dynasty was discovered recently when workers were expanding a street in eastern China.

Discovered about six feet below the road surface, the woman's features ~ from her head to her shoes ~ have retained their original condition, and have hardly deteriorated. The 700-year-old mummy was wearing traditional Ming dynasty costume, and also in the coffin were bones, ceramics, ancient writings and other relics.

The mummy, which was found in the city of Taizhou, in the Jiangsu Province, along with two other wooden tombs, offers a fascinating insight into life as it was back then.

This is the latest discovery after a lull of three years in the area. Indeed, between 1979 and 2008 five mummies were found, all in very good condition. Those findings raising the interest in learning the techniques of preservation funeral of this dynasty and customs in time to bury the dead.

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Mummies in Newly Discovered Tombs

A sarcophagus from inside one of the newly discovered tombs.

Archaeologists south of Cairo have discovered 57 tombs, most of which hold a painted wooden sarcophagus with a mummy inside, Egyptian authorities announced today. The oldest tombs date back to around 2750 BC., during the period of Egypt's first and second dynasties. Twelve belong the 18th Dynasty, which ruled Egypt during the second millennium BC, and included well-known pharaohs such as Tutankhamun, Akhenaten and Queen Hatshepsut.

The mummies dating to the 18th Dynasty are covered in linen decorated with religious texts from the Book of the Dead and scenes featuring ancient Egyptian deities, authorities said. Abdel Rahman El-Aydi, head of the archaeological mission that made the discovery, said some of the tombs are decorated with religious texts that ancient Egyptians believed would help the deceased to cross through the underworld.

One of the oldest tombs is almost completely intact, with all of its funerary equipment and a wooden sarcophagus containing a mummy wrapped in linen. In 31 tombs dating to around 2030-1840 B.C, archaeologists discovered scenes of different ancient Egyptian deities, such as the falcon-headed Horus, Hathor, Khnum and Amun, decorating some of the tombs.

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Forensics Artists Reconstruct Mummy's Features

This video shows the reconstruction of Meresamun's head by Joshua Harker, while the drawing below shows her features as depicted by police artist Michael Brassell.

Two forensics artists have independently reconstructed the appearance of an ancient Egyptian temple singer named Meresamun, who lived around 800 BC and died of unknown causes at about age 30.

Researchers created a 3-D digital model of Meresamun's skull through multiple detailed CT-scans. Then the data was handed over to the two forensic artists to extrapolate the woman's facial features.

Chicago artist Joshua Harker used the Gatliff-Snow American Tissue Depth Marker Method to calculate the contours of the face and produce a digital reconstruction. This technique is considered accurate enough that its results are admissible in court to identify victims.

"The skull is the driving architecture of the face ~ all the proportions and placements are there, if you know how to read it," Harker said. "Even the shapes of the lips, nose and eyebrows can be determined if you know what to look for."

A more traditional police sketch was made by Michael Brassell, an artist who works on cold-case investigations with the Maryland Department of Justice and the State Police Missing Persons Unit. Brassell also used the CT-scan model to estimate the shape of Meresamun's face.

"The project was no different than any of the postmortem drawings I have worked on for cold case homicides," Brassell said. "The CT scans were very clear, making my job easy. If this was a homicide case, I would almost go as far to guarantee a hit on the profile drawing."

The woman inside the mummy was apparently tall for the time, with wide-spaced eyes and an overbite.

"Meresamun was, until the time of her death at about 30, a very healthy woman," said Michael Vannier, a University of Chicago radiologist who made the CT-scans. "The lack of arrest lines on her bones indicates good nutrition through her lifetime and her well-mineralized bones suggest that she lived an active lifestyle."

Click here for the LiveScience article.

Click here for the Archaeology magazine article.

Dozens of Painted Mummies Found in Necropolis

One of the brightly colored mummies found near the Ilahun pyramid.

Archaeologists in an Egyptian oasis have found dozens of brightly painted mummies dating back as far as 4,000 years.

"The mission found dozens of mummies in 53 rock-hewn tombs dating to the Middle Kingdom" from 2061-1786 BC, according to Zahi Hawass announced Sunday. "Four of the mummies date back to the 22nd Dynasty (931 to 725 BC) and are considered some of the most beautiful mummies found."

The linen-wrapped mummies are painted in the still-bright traditional ancient Egyptian colors of turquoise, terracotta and gold.

The necropolis was uncovered near the Ilahun pyramid in Fayoum oasis south of Cairo. The team also found 15 painted masks, along with amulets and clay pots, Hawass said.

Click here for the Middle East Online article.

More Than Twenty Mummies Found at Saqqara

Egyptian archaeologists have found more than 20 mummies in a burial chamber dating back at least 2,600 years. Eight wooden and stone sarcophagi were also discovered during the excavations at the Saqqara site, said Zahi Hawass, Egypt's chief archaeologist.

One limestone sarcophagus sealed with plaster is thought to be more than 4,000 years old, according to the BBC.

The mummies ~ 22 of which were found in niches along a wall ~ were in a tomb dating to 640BC, Hawass said. One wooden sarcophagus had not been opened since ancient times, though one official said ancient grave robbers had probably reached it first, according to a government statement.

A mummy was found in the only sarcophagus to have been opened so far, and archaeologists said they were expecting to find more mummies in the others.

At right, a worker cleans the face of the recently discovered mummy.

Click here for the BBC article and a video.

Queen Seshestet Mummy is Unearthed

Archaeologists, above, unearth the sarcophagus and mummy, whose remains are shown at left.


Egyptian archaeologists have found the mummy of Queen Seshestet, mother of a pharaoh who ruled Egypt in the 24th century BC, the government said on Thursday.

After five hours spent lifting the lid of a sarcophagus, they found a skull, legs, pelvis, other body parts wrapped in linen, and ancient pottery, the government's antiquities department said. They also found gold wrappings which would have been put on the fingers of the mummified person.

Grave robbers ransacked the burial chamber in ancient times and stole the other objects. "Although they did not find the name of the queen buried in the pyramid, all the signs indicate that she is Seshestet, the mother of King Teti, the first king of the Sixth Dynasty," chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass said in a statement. Teti ruled Egypt for at least 10 years around the year 2300 BC and is buried nearby.

Click here for the Reuters article.