X-Message-Number: 26566
From: "Basie" <>
Subject: Perma frost again
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2005 21:44:19 -0400

It was 1990, and the team was investigating the remnants of Pazyryk culture, 
an ancient society that had left huge burial mounds in the Ukok Plateau, a 
mountainous region about 2 1/2 kilometers above sea level. Most of the 
burial mounds, however, had been pillaged by grave robbers long ago. So when 
the team discovered an untouched site, the stage was set for a series of 
astonishing discoveries. In 1993, archaeologist Natalya Polosmak made an 
exceptionally lucky choice of a burial mound for excavation. Not only had it 
been left untouched by grave robbers, but it had escaped the forces of time 
itself. There, preserved in permafrost, lay the mummified, tattooed body of 
a woman who had lived approximately 2,500 years ago and had been given a 
lavish funeral. Two years later, another team -- led by Vyacheslav Molodin, 
Polosmak's husband and a fellow archaeologist -- found the frozen body of a 
man. Both mummies were found in a sparsely populated part of the Altai 
Republic, close to Russia's borders with China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia.

http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/07/08/101.html

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=26566