The Xiangjiang region of China has always been a crossroads.
This remote region in the northwest area of China is currently claimed by both the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan). Gray areas seem to be part of the history of this desert land, and its largest claim to fame is explored in the fascinating Secrets of the Silk Road exhibit currently showing at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana, CA.
At the heart of Xiangjiang is the Tarim Valley. This desert region, perched at the crossroads of the ancient Silk Road, was once the very spot where East met West, where cultures collided and the exchange of goods, ideas, and spirituality is clearly documented.
The Silk Road
The influence of ancient western culture on this Chinese region is evident in the artifacts we see in the exhibit. Travel permits permit merchants to transport and sell their wares across the various regions of the ancient trade route. Sculpted figures depict Asian-looking men wearing Western trousers. In this Eastern location, we find artwork showing blue-eyed Roman faces and statues of nude European warriors, carved in that hyperbolic Greek style in which Zeus and his pantheon are often depicted.
The exhibit’s main draw is the mummies. And what mummies they are! Each one has been preserved through the natural processes resulting from the region’s climate rather than having been deliberately embalmed, so they look very different from an Egyptian mummy. To me, they seemed more lifelike, more like they have a story to tell.
Those who lived in this region were wealthy traders, and so their burial garb and grave goods were lavish. The mummies reflect this with their luscious silks, shoes, jewelry, and provisions for the afterlife that clearly mark their wealth. And none of them are Asian.
There’s Yingpan Man, clearly a merchant of high status. He rests in dark red silk robs, with an intricate Greco-Roman hunting pattern. The appropriately named “Beauty of Xiaohe,” is a jaw-dropping, extraordinarily well-preserved, Caucasian woman. There’s a mummified infant with red hair protruding from her burial cap and blue stones over her eyes to remind us of their color. The region’s people were a crossroads in themselves.
Pagans utilize many religious practices that have their origins in the East. Some traditions teach that practices such as energy work, worship of a Divine Feminine, and magic migrated into Europe from India and points East. If they did, they likely went through the crossroads at Xiangjiang.
The exchange of spiritual practice is clear. The modern people of the area are largely Muslim. There is evidence of the practice of Buddhism and Zoroastrianism. Crosses show that Christianity made it to this region with the ancient merchants.
Then there are variety of artifacts that look familiar to modern Pagans. In one instance, a linen banner tells the story of the world’s creation through the marriage of a Divine brother and sister. These are pictured as two intertwining spirals, rising from the bottom toward the top, reminiscent of both Kundalini and the caduceus.
Interestingly, tall, conical hats were found buried with the bodies of Western women. The exhibit narration specifically connects these to the modern witch hat. Although it is pure speculation, it’s fascinating to consider.
The actual grave sites, however, may be the most telling of all. Women were found to be buried with tall rods marking their graves while men were found with wide paddles as their gravestones.
The official interpretation is that the rods are phalluses and the paddles are vulvas – each giving the grave’s occupant the part they don’t have and will need to be reborn into the afterlife. This is corroborated by the finding that women were also buried with little phallic objects in their coffins as well. Again, it’s speculation, but it’s enough to perk up the ears of modern pagans, especially those whose practice centers on gender balance.
Mummy Grave Site
The Secrets of the Silk Road is a delight for any pagan- indeed. Through its artifacts, we begin to see how the exchange if ideas, inventions, and commodities also led to the spread of many spiritual practices, pagan and otherwise, across cultures. Every new culture and every new generation put its own stamp on these practices.
Although we know that our practice of a pagan faith is not as ancient or unbroken as once was believed, the exhibit suggests that we do indeed have ties to the ancient world. They may be loose, and they may have been filtered and watered down as they passed through cultures and across time, but there is a a guide post for us at the Silken Crossroads.
Zan and I have been in correspondence about these mummies (can we say they are on the mummy track?)
and I have shared pictures of them with him. One picture in particular shows the tall pointed hat. The original article downplayed the witch angle saying that other peoples wore pointed hats (the Sakas, for example) but I have seen Saka hats and they are not even close. This is an exact depiction of a witch”s hat and it has to be a case of racial memory brought down to us today. Google honeyguide for racial memory.
Hey Tim- thanks very much for this really interesting and informative post about the Xinjiang Mummies, which are fascinating historical mysteries. There was an article about them in The New York Times, by Nicholas Wade, “A Host of Mummies, a Forest of Secrets” (Science Times, Tuesday, March 16, 2010, p. D1), which commented on the number of European features about the Mummies, including their “distinctively Western appearance.” (p. D4) Felt hats with feathers tucked into the brim remind of “Tyrolean mountain hats”; several other items in the burial site resemble “artifacts or customs familiar in Europe,” notes the professor who wrote up the excavation summary. He observes Viking boat-burials, in addition to string skirts (found on the female Xinjiang Mummies) and phallic symbols, both being found in “Bronze Age burials of Northern Europe.” As he finds the “whole of the cemetery” to be “blanketed with blatant sexual symbolism,” he concludes that these people (apparently “obsessed with procreation”) attached great importance to fertility, burying several women in double-layered coffins with special grave-goods, for instance.
Europeans who made it to China 4000 years ago? What a remarkable story and a remarkable mystery!
Thanks for this really interesting article, Tim!
Hey Old Gray Mouse- yes, my good friend and Internet pen-pal Old Gray Mouse sent me some material about the Mummies some time ago, including a really cool picture of the “Witch’s hat” in question, which, yes, looks like nothing in the world so much as a Witch’s hat. In fact, it looks exactly like the type of hat that Elphaba wears in Wicked, on Broadway- Remember Old Gray Mouse, I e-mailed you right back going, it looks like Elphaba’s hat from Wicked- small brim, turned up, with the Witch’s cone on top. Very curious, indeed.
I still have that picture; I’m going to try to put it up on The Juggler, maybe in conjunction with a promo-picture of Elphaba, so people can see.
Hey Tim and Old Gray Mouse- OK my computer-savvy friend Gary came over and determined that the photo that I have of The Witch’s Hat on the Mummy in China I can’t put up somehow because it’s j-peg and something is reading it as zip-? I’m at a loss- it is such a cool photo- a skull, with an up-turned brim surrounding it, with a very long, spire-like point rising above it- awesome cool.
Almost every image I’ve loaded to The Juggler had been a j-peg. Have you tried popping it into a new post using the “add an image” button in the editor? You can preview rather than publish to verify that it loaded properly.
Is it the hat this one?
Hey Scott- I don’t think that it is the same Mummy or hat- the photo that Old Gray Mouse sent me is from another angle- but I think that the peak on the one that I have is much taller and more pronounced, with more of a brim evident. Let me ask Gary some more what to do- what do you think, Old Gray Mouse- I don’t believe that it is the same hat (that Scott put up), do you?
Hey Scott- the more I think about it, the more I’m afraid that Old Gray Mouse, Tim and I are talking about another Mummy and another Mummy’s hat- the most obvious thing, the hat that Old Gray Mouse sent to me (in photo) did not have those criss-cross red bands. Although the color may be off in the photo, the Witch’s hat looks to me to be black, whereas this hat is grey- this hat appears to have one of those “Tyrolean” feathers on its right side (which this hat in question does not)- the hat in “your” photo looks to be a sock-hat type, pulled down over the head, gray in color, with criss-cross red bands, perhaps to secure the feather apparently on the right-side, with admittedly a peak on top- the “Witch’s hat” in Old Gray Mouse’s photo is undecorated; apparently black in color; in two parts,: a smallish brim, popped up from the face, with: a very long (maybe two feet?), very slender and skinny spire rising up from the crown.
Scott -I have to agree with Zan; the hat picture I sent to him was not your picture. Like Zan says it is almost exactly like Elphaba’s hat or even very close to the ones in Harry Potter movies. I hope you guys find a way to put it up because I think it’s a very important piece of information.
Oh yeah, Old Gray Mouse, we’ll get this done!