Were the Tarim Mummies Afro-Eurasians?

Alice C. Linsley

The mummies of the Tarim Basin in Western China have been the topic of much speculation. It is believed that they moved into the Tarim region from Europe, but it is also possible that their ancestors moved out of the Nile Valley. The Tarim mummies are likely related to the peoples of the Afro-European Haplogroup R1.

The first mummies were unearthed at Qizilchoqa, or Red Hillock. Some were found at Urumchi (Urumqi) in the Tian Shan Mountains (Mountains of the High God) near the border with Kazakhstan. Another mummy found near Subashi, 310 miles west of Qizilchoqa, was that of a man who had undergone a surgical operation on his neck. The incision was closed with horsehair sutures.

At Subashi, a woman's body was found wearing a two-foot black felt peaked hat with a flat brim like that worn by the Saka. In 1970, just over China's western border in Kazakhstan, the grave of a man from the same period yielded a two-foot conical hat studded with gold-leaf decorations.

Saka with peaked hat

 

The hat on the statute above resembles the peaked cap on this 1.5-inch-high, 15th-century B.C. gold pendant found at Hattusa in Turkey. Hattusa was a Hittite shrine city. The Hittites of Mamre recognized Abraham as a kinsman, calling him "a great prince among us." (Genesis 23)

The dating of the Tarim mummies ranges from c.2000 BC to c.500 BC. The Tarim Basin was once dotted with lakes and rivers, but the water has largely disappeared. Today the Taklimakan region is a wind swept desert with the Tian Shan range to the north, the Kunlun mountains to the south, and the Qilian mountains to the east.

Before the arrival of the Han Chinese, Western China was occupied by people with features that included round eyes, light brown hair, blonde hair, red beards, and blue eyes. Their features are like those of mummies found at Nekhen on the Nile.

In one burial site archaeologists found a wood model of a mummy in a carved boat. This may be similar to the solar barque of the ancient Nilotes that was believed to carry the dead to immortality. Tarim temples were decorated with solar images consistent with the solar symbolism of the R1b Nilotes for whom the Sun was the emblem of the Creator.

Early expeditions to the Tarim Basin led to the discovery of texts written in seventeen different languages. Linguists believe that languages of the Tarim mummies were Khotanese Saka and Tocharian A and B. János Harmatta pointed out that the Khotanese Saka language is very similar to the Bactrian language as outlined in his analysis of the Dasht-e-Nawur inscriptions.

This chart compares Saka and Tocharian B with Latin and English. All these languages derive from a common Proto-Indo-European (PIE) source.

Linguists note that Tocharian has more in common with the western Indo-European languages than with the eastern Indo-European languages.

The Kushan Yuezhi, also called Saka, called themselves Visha or the Vijaya. This is sometimes rendered as "traders" or "tribes" though the word refers to their two ruling royal houses, as in vijana, the splitting of wisdom. The honorific title "Pharaoh" originates in the term pr-aa, which means "great house." In Vedic tradition, pra-jna means "wisdom of the great house." The words have multiple related meanings (polysemic). In Vedic tradition the a-laya-vijña-na is the seed of the receptacle-world, but literally it means the receptacle of the seed, as in vagina, symbolized originally by the pictograph V.

The Kushan high king called himself "son of heaven" or the “son" of God (Tian), as did the rulers of the Nile.

The Yuezhi Kushan spoke Tocharian and are sometimes referred to as Tochara. They were organized into five clans and the clan chiefs were called Yabgu. Note the initial solar cradle Y. It designates a divinely appointed ruler (deified "son" of God), which is why it appears in the Hebrew names of many biblical rulers: Yaqtan (Joktan); Yishmael (Ishmael); Yishbak; Yitzak (Isaac); Yacob (Jacob); Yosef (Joseph); Yetro (Jethro); Yeshai (Jesse), Yonah (Jonah), and Yeshua (Joshua/Jesus).

Saka Yuezhi warrior

Among the Nilotes the solar orb rested in the horns of bulls. Among the Saka the solar orb often rested in the antlers of deer. This is bronze standard, with it solar imagery, has a stag and two bulls. It was found at Alaca Höyük and dates to about 1900 BC.

The territory of the Yuezhi Kushan was about two thousand miles north of India. The land is at a high altitude with a dry climate, though it was once wet. The people were known for their skill at archery and horsemanship. Here is an image of one of the Tarim Mummies (1000 BC). Note the solar horse in his cheek.

The skin tone of the Kushan was reddish like that of the rulers of Nekhen on the Nile, the oldest know site of Horite Hebrew worship.

 The relationship of the Kushan and the Nilotic Kushites has been explored here.

Related reading: The Tarim Mummies of Western China;  E. J. W. Barber, The Mummies of Urumchi, W. W. Norton, 1979; Bronze Age Languages of the Tarim Basin; Andrew Wigman, The Migration of the Proto-Tocharians, 2016; The Hittites of Anatolia