Xiaohe Tomb complex
Xiaohe (Chinese: Xiao He Mu小河 墓) is a major Early Bronze Age necropolis dating back to around 2000 BC in the circle Qakilik in the Mongolian Autonomous County in Xinjiang Bayinguoleng in the west of China. The site also bears the former name Ördeks necropolis, Ördeks Necropolis Cemetery and Burial Ground No. 5. 5 It is located 175 km west of Loulan, 36 km northeast of the city Alagan Zhen and 60 km south of the river Kum- daria in the Lop Nor desert near the dried-up little river, which has given the reference of the name ( Small River = chines. xiao he).
Fund history
The Uighur Ördek discovered the site in 1924. Ördek had accompanied Sven Hedin in the years 1899-1901 in its second Expedition and was came across the ruins of Loulan. When he learned that Sven Hedin had come back in 1934 with his Chinese- Swedish expedition to Lop Nor desert, visited him and told him Ördek his discovery of the necropolis. Sven Hedin writes the following about Ördeks report: His last walk about ten years ago, in 1924, had discovered east it over my old in 1896, but now dry lake Awullu - kul led out. A day's journey into the desert Ördek had found wonderful things. At one point he had seen a dead city where countless coffins made of solid wood in two layers were stacked one above the other. He had opened several coffins. The insides were richly carved and painted. Apart from the well-preserved, clothed with magnificent silk robes bodies contained the coffins also a lot of sheets of paper with a strange font and decorated with colorful ornaments. In the distance he saw a house with the door open. Through a window opening he saw a blinding light bill and was so frightened that he did not dare to go closer.
After Ördeks Fund report found the Swedish expedition Folke Bergman and George Soderbom 1934 at the Little River (Chinese: Xiaohe ), among other tombs also the Cemetery 5, which was later called by Chinese archaeologists Xiaohe. A long-term effect of the excavations in Ördeks necropolis was created by Bergmans publication 7 in the Report: Archaeological Researches in Sinkiang. Especially the Lop Nor region.
Had been as this band after decades translated into the Chinese language, led Chinese archaeologists from the Archaeological Institute of Xinjiang and Jilin University in the years 2002 to 2005, numerous excavations in the localities through which discovered during the Sino- Swedish expedition and documented by Folke Bergman were. During the excavations, they uncovered Early Bronze Age cemeteries in their coffins lay up to 4000 year old mummies. Here, the assumption by Folke Bergman confirmed that the eastern Tarim Basin about 4,000 years ago by Caucasians (English: Caucasian race ) had been colonized, the later Tocharians, their ancestral Indo-European ancestors from Europe.
This excavation was one of China's top ten archaeological discoveries of 2004.
As ever in the Lop Nor desert illegal excavations are carried out, which can not be prevented, the Chinese government established here from 2006 one of the focal points of its archaeological research in order to excavate the remaining described by Folke Bergman on 80 sites, secure and documented. This is a success of the subsequent research by Folke Bergman.