Desiccated corpses found under Mountain of Flames

By china tour on 2009-12-9 9:12:00 | China Travel News

Desiccated corpses found under Mountain of Flames
At about 2:00 P.M. on the date of 5th, January, 2009, a block of Qing Dynasty graves were discovered at the foot of one of the Mountain of Flames in Shanshan Town of Turfan, Xinjiang Province. After evaluations by Lv Enguo, the researcher of Xinjiang Archeology Research Institute and stuff of cultural relics bureau in Turfan Area, they were identified as desiccated corpses in Qing Dynasty.
This block of graves had been found when construction laborers who were doing ground grading and building houses dug bases. Local construction organization informed cultural relics bureau of Shanshan Town right away. Head and stuff of it rushed there immediately and operated protections to the scene.
Experts from Xinjiang Archeology Research Institute and cultural relics bureau in Turfan Area were invited there by Shanshan related government to reconnaissance and stuff of Archeology Research Institute rootled the scene. They dug out 2 desiccated corpses already. Corpsed that could be surely dug out are 6 pieces and there are large numbers of shoes, hats and clothes. These coffins were thin wood blocks which were about 1 cm thick and there were no funeral objects in these several ancient graves.

One of desiccated corpses unearthed had a height of 1.70 meters with a medium figure. He has a bold forehead with a long and black pigtail. His face was pale and yellow. Soft and thin beard on the upper lip were so clear that you can even counted them one by one. Wearing a half-long dark blue cotton-padded jacket and dark grey cotton-padded trousers, his lappet of blue kaftan was wildly open and a couple of thin ankles naked. Skin and flesh of his feet were air-dried into a couple of shriveled and dark brown ones. Stuff of Cultural Relics Bureau stuff were marveled at perfect preservation of mummies and said he can be exhibited in a museum.
At the scene of ancient graves, Zhangyongbing, the associate research fellow in Study of Turfan of academic institution said, “In Qing Dynasty, there are Han residents or armies lived or garrison in Shanshan Town of Turfan Area. According to traditions of our country, people in old times paid attention to official titles. When people with a title passed away, they usually were buried wearing togaes with a numbers of funeral objects. However, hosts of these graves didn’t wear tagaes or clothes of soldiers, so they had no operational titles. Most probably they were common people.
As recorded from Qing Dynasty, government had garrison troops open up wasteland and grow food grain in Shanshan Town, and there are a few relics discovered near the spot. What’s added, owners of graves were male which can prove that maybe these owners were soldiers in Shanshan.
Two archeologists reached consensus that scale of these graves can not be sure and maybe larger than expected.