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