Loulan beauty refers to a female mummy unearthed by Mu Shunying in 1980. It is called "Loulan Beauty" in history. It is the earliest ancient corpse unearthed in Xinjiang and has a history of about 3,800 years.
It is scientifically determined that the woman was about forty-five years old at the time of death. She was 1.55 meters tall and weighed 10.1 kg. Her blood type was O. She was lying on her back when she was unearthed. In a typical wind-eroded sandy soil platform, the top of the tomb is covered with branches, reeds, side horns, grass baskets, etc. After the ancient corpse was discovered, it immediately caused a sensation. For scientists, it has many values that can help science solve unsolved mysteries, but for ordinary people, everyone feels new and curious. The discoverer at that time had a description of the image of the ancient corpse: wearing coarse woolen fabric and sheepskin, wearing fur boots sewn with thick threads. The hair is more than a foot long and yellowish brown. It is rolled into a pointed felt hat with a few feathers inserted. The complexion is reddish-brown and elastic. The eyes are large and deep, the bridge of the nose is high and narrow, and the chin is pointed... People say it coincidentally. Pretty.
But how beautiful can it be? In 2004, Professor Zhao Chengwen, chief professor of the Criminal Police Academy of China, obtained pictures of Loulan beauty from Liang Yue, one of the authors of the book "The Legend of Loulan and the Mystery of the Millennium". Later, Professor Zhao decided to restore the image of Loulan's beauty. He first scanned X-rays of Loulan beauty's skull into the computer, and then used 9 straight lines (4 horizontal and 5 vertical) to determine the location and size of the facial features according to the "three courts and five eyes" theory in the painting. Then, referring to the photos taken of the beautiful girl's body in Loulan at the time of the excavation, and related materials, input the relevant information into the "Jingxing cck-3 Portrait Simulation Combination System" developed by myself, and then follow the principles of human anatomy and anthropology from this Find the facial features that match Loulan beauty's skull in the system's component library. Then, use the knowledge of art and medicine to make it.
This work lasted for about a year. On April 10, 2005, under Zhao Chengwen's "pen", an image of the "Loulan Beauty" that passed through the ancient tunnel was revealed In front of people: a mature woman about 35 years old, with deep sunken and energetic eyes, big eyes, high nose bridge, nose tip, thin red lips, sharp chin, slightly higher cheekbones... Then, Zhao Chengwen “worn” a white cashmere hat with 3 geese lings inserted in the hat, and increased the length of the brown-red hair, and “worn” a thick thread blended top for it to keep it sideways, slightly On the left, echoing with the hair on the right...Recovered a photo of a beautiful woman more than 3,000 years ago, and made this beautiful woman alive in the poetry and poetry of many literati, travelers, explorers, and historical and geography hobbies. In the biographical statement, it became a kind of beauty and beauty that was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people almost overnight, and Lop Nur, where the Loulan beauty was born, has become the pursuit and yearning of some adventures.
We don’t doubt Professor Zhao’s restoration, it was a scientific method after all, but there is a problem that also arises here, that is, Professor Zhao’s restoration of "Loulan Beauty" After all, it was the appearance of a Loulan woman 3800 years ago. One person is raised by water and soil. In later social life, what did the "Loulan beauty" look like?
In the historical records, in the "Book of Jin·Zhang Jun Biography": In 326 AD, the great warlord Zhang Jun who ruled Dunhuang took advantage of the chaos and sent General Yang Xuan to attack Shanshan. . Shanshan Wang Yuanmeng was forced to be helpless and had to sacrifice the Loulan beauty, which put an end to the war. This blond and blue-eyed Loulan girl won Zhang Jun's favor. Not only did she give her the title of "beauty", she also specially built a palace for her called "Bin Xia Guan". Beautiful women can always be liked by men and always get superior treatment. A batch of texts unearthed from the Great Wall of Han Dynasty in Dunhuang were written in the Han bamboo slips in the late Western Han Dynasty, and also mentioned that "the wife of the old man Jieyi of the East Ye and the wife of the Marquis Yanqi, namely the Shanshan girl". Yanqihou was the king of Yanqi. When Wang Mang took the throne, all the kings of the Western Regions were demoted to the rank of prince. It can be seen that Loulan is a place rich in beautiful women should be well-deserved. However, what exactly do they look like? Description of the textAfter all, the description is not as intuitive as photos and portraits, and we can only ask Stein to "help".
Mark Olaer Stein, abbreviated as Stein, also see "Sideno", "Stein Nang" in the literature. Originally from Hungary, he was a Jew and was naturalized as a British citizen in 1904. World-renowned archaeologists, art historians, linguists, geographers and explorers, one of the founders of international Dunhuang studies. He is the main collector of Dunhuang and Central Asian cultural relics in Britain and India today, and one of the earliest researchers and publishers.
from 1900 until his death in 1943 (During the period he worked in the Bureau of Archaeology of India from 1910 to 1929, and was employed by Harvard University in disguise after retiring in 1929) , Stein dedicated all his life to Asian exploration. He went to my country three times: the first time was from 1900 to 1901 to excavate the Niya site in Hotan area. It was a huge success. After that, he wrote a travel account of "The Ruins of Hetian Buried in the Sand", and the official archaeological report is "Ancient Hetian". The second time was the excavation of the ancient Loulan site from 1906 to 1908, defrauding a large number of Dunhuang cultural relics at the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang. Dunhuang cultural relics made a sensation throughout Europe. The author of travel notes "Desert Khitan Abandoned Site" and official archaeological report "Western Region Archaeology". The third time was from 1913 to 1916, revisited Niya, Loulan Site, Dunhuang, and once again swept away a large number of cultural relics. After the inspection, he wrote "Hinterland of Asia" and "On the Ancient Road in Central Asia".
At the end of 1906, Stein came to the old city of Milan, where he excavated for 18 days and stole too many cultural relics. In the 3rd century AD Buddhist murals in the ancient city, the beauty of Loulan and Stein met unexpectedly. According to the inscription of the mural, this mural was made by a Greek painter invited by Daxia in Central Asia. The painter's name is "Titus". To paint such a painting, you have to pay 3,000 yuan, which is a thousand dollars for painting.
Stein said that when he first saw these paintings, he was surprised. He wrote in the archaeological report: Under the enthusiastic excitement, after I carefully cleaned them head by head with bare hands, I immediately understood what I had seen in the north and south of Kunlun Mountain. Among any ancient painting art, the composition and tone of these paintings are the closest to the classical style. The big eyes that were fully opened and the gaze flexibly, the small expressions on the corners of the lips brought my mood back to the beautiful heads of the Greek girls and the young men painted on the plates from the Egyptian Ptolemy and Roman mummies tombs. Up.
This is the Loulan beauty, which "scares" Stein, or it is too beautiful, so beautiful that she "stuns" Stein. Ancient Milan used to be an important base for the Han Dynasty to manage the Western Regions. According to historical records, this place was the Yixun City of Loulan in the Western Han Dynasty. In other words, it was once a city in Loulan Country. How beautiful Stein saw the beauty of Loulan, we won't write it here, look at the photos. When Stein released the materials in the Milan site, the world academia and art circles were shocked.
Among the murals discovered by Stein, there are portraits of half-length figures with two wings. This is the "winged" that shocked the world. "Angel" mural. Loulan people not only have "photos" here, but also "fly". Stein took seven more complete portraits of winged figures to the British Museum in London, England. The construction period of these murals was mainly in the Tang Dynasty. He believes that "winged angels" evolved from the god Gaara in ancient Greek mythology, which is the flying Gandapo in Buddhism. However, in recent years, Chinese scholars have found that this statement is a pair, namely "Fei Tian" has no wings and has a bald head. The winged figures of the Buddhist temple in Milan have no heads, so it does not belong to the "heaven", so it cannot be called the "flying sky". The positions where they appear are the positions of the supporters, so they can only be "people", only the supporters.
A supporter portrait is a person who draws or builds an icon or digs a grotto with a religious fund. In order to express piety, remember the merits and survivors, draw or draw on the corners or sides of religious paintings or statues. Carve portraits of yourself and your family, relatives, slaves and other people. These portraits are called support portraits. Although there was a habit of drawing portraits of donors in the West, Buddhism is the most common type of portraits and statues. Therefore, the image Stein discovered can only be the image of the Loulan people in the Tang Dynasty in China, and Loulan's adopted daughter is among them.
It seems to stop here, it seems that we have seen the image of Loulan beauty, but some people may still ask this question: now, theirs What does it look like? Is it like the Uyghur girl today? In this regard, our answer is: no. Because the Uyghurs did not arrive in Xinjiang until 840 AD, Stein believed that the murals found in the Milan site should have little to do with them. Among the ethnic groups in Xinjiang today, if there is any ethnic group that looks like the Loulan, it should be the Tajik.
We have specifically mentioned in the previous article that as far as the current situation is concerned, the Tajik is the oldest ethnic group among the indigenous peoples in Xinjiang. Therefore, Loulan was discovered that year. When she was a beautiful girl, some people said that she was like a Tajik girl, with the appearance of "shen fish and geese" and "shame flowers and closed moon".
