Product Description

In the museums of Urumchi, the windswept regional capital of the Uyghur Autonomous Region (also known as Chinese Turkestan), a collection of ancient mummies lies at the center of an enormous mystery. Some of Urumchi's mummies date back as far as 4,000 years--contemporary with the famous Egyptian mummies but even more beautifully preserved. Surprisingly, these prehistoric people are not Asian but Caucasoid--tall, large-nosed and blond with thick beards and round eyes. What were these blond Caucasians doing in the heart of Asia? What language did they speak? Might they be related to a "lost tribe" known from later inscriptions? Few clues are offered by their pottery or tools, but their clothes--woolens that rarely survive more than a few centuries--have been preserved as brightly hued as the day they were woven. Elizabeth Wayland Barber describes these remarkable mummies and their clothing, and deduces their path to this remote, forbidding place. The result is a book like no other--a fascinating unveiling of an ancient, exotic, nearly forgotten world. A finalist for the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #143146 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780393320190
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
The 2000-year-old mummies of Ürümchi, found in central Asia along the famed Silk Road trading route, are so well preserved as to show clearly that they seem to be of Caucasoid origin. Where did these people come from? Where did they go? You can find their pale-skinned, light-haired descendents among the people of the region, but the story of their presence in this forbidding land leaves more mysteries than it answers. Mass migrations during the Bronze Age scattered many peoples across Europe and Asia, and these startlingly lively-looking mummies may help answer some questions about this period of human history. Their intact, fantastically colored and patterned clothing captures much of author Elizabeth Wayland Barber's attention--she is an expert on prehistoric textiles. Her enthusiastic descriptions of the sewing skills of these migrant people, while focusing on details, lend an immediacy to this fascinating tale. Black-and-white as well as color photos, maps, and diagrams illustrate Barber's colorful tale of anthropology. --Therese Littleton

From Publishers Weekly
In 1994, a most astonishing discovery was made in Western China. Incredibly well-preserved mummies dating back 2000 years were unearthed in this remote region?mummies with large, colorful wardrobes, mummies that were distinctively Caucasian. The mystery of what six-foot-tall, fair-haired people were doing in China at the time took Barber, an expert on ancient textiles at Occidental College in L.A., to the desert city of Urumchi in 1995, where archeologists at the site hoped that her expertise might help them understand what these unlikely people were doing there. She had excellent material to work with: the mummies were in such remarkable condition that they still had full heads of hair and beards, and their skin was only slightly weathered. Most had been buried with plenty of brightly colored clothes to wear (one man was buried with 10 hats, each a different style), which gave Barber a treasure-trove of textiles with which to work. Barber structures her tale as a mystery, revealing information piecemeal until she presents her conclusions about the origin of the mummies. In the process, she treats readers to a lively story about the ebb and flow of ancient cultures, a story largely deduced from the development of weaving, dyeing, embroidery and fashion. Barber's hypothesis about how Caucasian mummies wound up in Urumchi, which has something to do with the Silk Road, is so clear and logical that readers will be satisfied that all relevant possibilities have been thoroughly examined. The only thing lacking is information on how to pronounce Urumchi. 16 pages of color photos; 50 b&w drawings.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
In an often fascinating glimpse of an exotic lost world, textile expert Barber (Occidental Coll.; Womens Work, The First 20,000 Years, 1994, etc.) unravels the mysteries of the beautifully preserved mummies of rmchi, a city in western China. In1994 the West learned of dazzlingly appareled ancient mummies, discovered buried in the deserts of China's remote Uyghur Autonomous Region. Astonishingly, these mummified remains, the most venerable of which were approximately 2,000 years old, evoked the specter of tall, blond Caucasian people, wearing magnificently colored clothing, including polychrome leggings and high-peaked ``witches' hats.'' The following year, as part of a team of US scholars, Barber was able to observe these finds in the museum of rmchi. Although the graves contained few artifacts besides garments, Barber gleans what she can of the origins, life, and culture of these people from their brightly hued textiles, preserved from decay by the dry desert climate. Afforded a rare glimpse of prehistoric fabrics, the author draws parallels with the weaving techniques of Japan and the Middle East, particularly Persiabut also, more provocatively, with those of the Celtic peoples of Ireland and Scotland. She speculates that these mysterious people were peripatetic herders and oasis-hoppers of Indo-European origin, possibly Turkic-speaking, and she establishes links between the Caucasian people of this remote Chinese region and the ancient Celts. Other evidence may link the mummies with the ancient Iranians. Barber attempts to visualize the primeval landscape: She concludes that todays desert was then lush and inviting, moisturized by runoffs of glacial rainwater. The trove of mummies points to a vital prehistoric culture, nourished by contacts with both European and Chinese societies, and shows an ancient commerce between East and West, the legacy of which lives on in the Caucasian features of Chinese-speaking modern inhabitants of the region. A haunting archaeological excursion. (16 pages color, 50 b&w illustrations) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

A Guiding Light for Traversing the Tunnels of Our History
Ms. Barber has given me exactly what I hoped for with this incredible book: a plausible suggestion for the origins of these fascinating people. My first contact with the mummies of the Tarim Basin was through an article published by Discover magazine, which I have kept. After reading that piece, my imagination took off, and I found myself hauling out atlases and everything I own on the pre-history of humans. It was not until reading this excellent book that I found support for some of my inexperienced suspicions of the mummies' origins. I have learned so much from this book, from the dispersion of Indo-European languages to the role of textiles in our human development. I love Ms. Barber's writing style; she doesn't go over the head of the layperson. She uses humor and a friendly tone, as if you were at her elbow, studying the clothing of the Cherchen man. Her manner of explaining new pieces of information was very clear. It was easy to understand a previously unknown textile term, for instance, through her simple illustrations and analogies. I highly recommend this book. I eagerly await more news from the continuing excavations, and more publications from Elizabeth!

Wow
This was an impressive text. I am not personally knowledgeable about textiles, although my mother an artist who is a consumate spinner and weaver is, and so I have come to have an appreciation for the weaver's art through my association with her. I was especially impressed by the authors' thorough knowledge of the craft and of the archaeological implications of the textiles preserved with the famous Urumchi mummies of the Tarim Basin of the Taklimakan Desert. These naturally preserved bodies, like the freeze dried mummies of the Andean mountains and the Early Bronze age body found frozen in an Alpine glacier, provide archaeologists with direct information about the health, genetic relationships, and cultural affinities of the people in these regions. In particular the Urumchi mummies are unique in that the population appears to have been caucasian rather than oriental, suggesting early settlement of the area from the West. Prior to the discovery of these bodies, it had always been assumed that the cultures of the East and the West had developed in relative isolation with respect to one another. Now it is clearer that the human populations of both areas were in far greater contact and that there was significant potential for both genetic and cultural exchange, with ultimate implications for the later civilizations that developed in each. With their intensive evaluation of the fiber crafted cultural remains entered with the bodies, the Barbers' add fine points of detail to what is known about the people of the area and of their likely origins. The book clearly illustrates the value of textiles in the approach to archaeological problems.

Central Asian mummies brought to life
When most people think of mummies, they think of ancient Egypt, or maybe South America. In truth, mummification can occur whenever the conditions are right, and the arid Tarim River basin in Western China has revealed a large number of mummified bodies, thousands of years old.

What sets these mummies out from others is their probable ethinicity. The author displays with great lucidity the thesis that these people were not Asian at all, but rather were closely related to the Celts.

She does this by covering a wide range of available evidence, such as funeral practices, cloth, and language, as well as looking at the geography of the region and exptraploating as to how it may have affected the patterns of settlement three thousand years ago or more. At the end, I was convinced by her arguments, and in the process gained a better appreciation of the Celts, whom I had assumed I understood reasonably well. This is only possible because of the author's breadth of knowledge and research, well presented in a sparsely worded style.

This book is a great combination of popular science and academic sholarship. I like it the more as the author has the intellectual honesty to admit the points on which her thesis may be lacking in evidence. This does much to inspire confidence in the work as a whole.

Having just finished reading Tournament of Shadows, I prefer this book for its coverage of the Tarim River basin by far.