The mummies discovered in the foothills of the Tian Shan Mountains in China were pretty mysterious ones. What was so mysterious about them is the fact that they date back to 4, 000 years ago.

The first mystery is in the way these mummies are unusually well preserved even though they were not being mummified. But this is due to climate. These mummies have been found on the edges of the Taklamakan Desert. When these ancient people buried their dead, the hot climate and rocky soil helped to keep the deceased’s body preserved, though it should have decomposed hundreds of years ago. Some of these corpses rival the Ancient Egyptian mummies in their extraordinary preserved state.

The second mystery is the attire in which they were buried. If the fact that some of them had blond hair and blue eyes hadn’t given away the fact that they were westerners that had settled in what is now Xinjiang, the clothing they wore when they were buried would have. One of the mummies, the Yingpan Man, was six feet six inches tall and wore a red tunic with gold embroidery. He also wore a gold foil burial mask. This burial clothing is far more indicative of western influence than of Eastern.