The world oldest tartan ever ?

[AuldAlliance]

Hello there, Yesterday, I've seen a documentary on Arte (a German-French TV channel) about old mummies found in the Taklamakan Desert in China. According with there DNA, sevral mummies had celtic roots. Mors important (for us :-) they had tartan leggins and shrouds, 30 centuries before us ! The wikipedia about that : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarim_mummies And words from the Independant : http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...es-413638.html

[Sharkman]

Very interesting links. I had heard a little bit about these mummies. I did not know that they were such a touchy subject with the locals and the Chinese authorities. Great Post!

[AuldAlliance]

Great Post!

Being a newbie, I'm very proud :-) I cannot found any picture of these prehistoric tartans on the net yet, but in the documentary it lokks really like a tartan !

[Highlander31]

I watched a show here in the states some time back on the mummies. A scientist who tested a small piece of the tartan, stated, it looked as good as her two year old bathrobe.

It would be interesting to compare the plaid with the other ancient tartan samples we have archived.

[Tartan Tess]

It's on the tartan timeline from Scottish Tartan Authority
http://www.tartansauthority.com/tart...rtan-timeline/
and The Scottish Weaver
http://www.thescottishweaver.com/PDF...ne%20jun05.pdf
check it out

[tripleblessed]

In 1999, having been invited to speak at a wellness conference in Novosibirsk, I was able to visit a museum where some mummies found in the Altai were on display. They were so well preserved that their clothes were placed on models for a photo shoot. They had very light skin, apparently had light eyes, and one had blonde hair in braids over his left shoulder. It was said they were kin to the Celts and the Scythians who lived on the western edges of the Steppes; the Celts in the mountains, and the Scythians on the plains. Some believe the Celts traded jewelry and other metal work for these horses, creating a long and deep connection between Celts and horses. The horse allowed the spread of the culture across the Steppes, a huge area for nomadic folk to cover and spread horses. The mummies had been buried with their horses, along with saddles and harness. Traveling to Gorno-Altaisk, we were able to "borrow" a Russian military helicopter and fly down to Mount Belukha, on the Kazakh border about 40 miles from China and maybe 60 or so from the Mongolian border, and somewhere in the neighborhood of a similar distance from where those mummies had been found. We were about 800 miles or so north of the Taklamakan, well within the area traveled by these tribes on their beloved horses. I am including a link to an article about them. No kilts or tartan, but similar mummies, and possibly kin, and I thought folk might enjoy the artwork of the tattoos, and perhaps see cultural connections therein. You'll need to scroll down a bit. I thought the article worth the post, YMMV.

http://siberiantimes.com/culture/oth...r-old-tattoos/

These mummies, too, have accreted political baggage, and that has colored what is published. Removing them to
Novosibirsk, a major science and education center, for study, caused both spiritual friction and racial friction. We arrived in Gorno-Altaisk in the early doldrums of a drive to raise money to bring them back to the Altai and were asked for help to do that. Favorable exchange rates made our contributions seem inordinately helpful, and I see that their efforts apparently were successful.

[OC Richard]

It's fascinating linguistically as well, with the discovery of the Easternmost Indo-European languages, the so-called Tocharian A and Tocharian B.

Some words in Tocharian A:

tre three
pan five (cf pentagon)
okat eight (cf octopus, October)
nu nine
kant hundred (cf cent, century, centurion, centigrade)
pacar father
macar mother
ko cow
nom name (cf nominate, nomenclature)
malka milk

[Laird_M]

Very interesting post and articles.
I've always been interested in this sort of thing as my ancestors were great explorers (the MacLeods originating from Nordic stock), and in my travels having encountered too many similarities in historical culture, implements, musical instruments and even words, to make me believe that ancient tribes/cultures were as isolationist as some historians would have us believe.

[figheadair]

Shouldn't this be in the Tartan thread?

[figheadair]

Probably the best book for those interested is this one.

I met the author shortly after she'd returned from the Taklamakan area and was working on her book. We exchanged ideas about the origins of the tartans and aspects of their construction which are similar to pieces from the Hebrides.

The Tocharians appear to have been Celts that migrated east from the Caucuses whereas the majority moved west but both groups appear to share a common tartan heritage.