THE TARIM MUMMIES
THE TARIM MUMMIES At the heart of Central Asia lies a shifting sand desert called the Taklamakan, ‘Place of no return’. It lays within what is called the Tarim Basin, once part of a shallow inland sea that 34 million years ago stretched all the way from the European region north of the Alps. The sea consisted of a series of deep basins connected by shallow seaways, some of which dried up some five million years ago. The Black Sea, Caspian Sea, Aral Sea, plus Lake Urmia and Lake Namak in Iran are all remnants of this once-vast sea. Nowadays, the Tarim Basin is flanked by some of the world’s highest mountain ranges, the Kunlun Shan to the south, separating it from Tibet; the Tianshan to the north, separating it from the Mongolian plateau; plus the Himalayas and Pamir mountains to the west, separating it from Tajikistan and the Indian subcontinent. The area is extremely arid, but the melting snows from the surrounding mountains channel into small rivers whose waters create isolate