Product Details

• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Wgbh Boston
• VHS Release Date: March 28, 2000
• Run Time: 60 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6305048991
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #279,588 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Perfectly preserved 3000-year-old mummies have been unearthed in a remote Chinese desert, shedding new light on the contact between the East and West in the ancient world. But these don't appear to be the ancestors of the modern-day Chinese people, they have long, blonde hair and blue eyes. New evidence of the lost civilization of the Tocharians along the Silk Road offers more clues to this mystery from the past.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating video with mind-boggling information, October 6, 2011

By 

John B. Todd (Boise, Idaho, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Nova: Mysterious Mummies of China [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This video shatters the Political Correctness myths about who was where first. This video has information that is censored from the West and even China is in on the censorship act. It's amazing that this video even was made! Get it before it goes down the memory hole.

5.0 out of 5 stars History Stranger Than Fiction, December 31, 2006

By 

Sargon "of Akkad" (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nova: Mysterious Mummies of China [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Western man is essentially a builder and explorer. Which is why he is the 1st one in space and set about circumnavigating the world before that. Its in his nature. This pertains to science too. Unfortunately, in the same breath he's damn good at abandoning said discoveries.

These mummies fit in with this characteristic trait. They wnadered into this region eons ago and maybe even originated there since "Western" man seems to have almost an "Eastern" origin. He's always going west it would seem. We know he's connected to the Celtic-Germanic peoples and the tapes reveals why. Not just genetic but linguistic and culturally too. Another mystery in the fabric of life. I feel these mummies may be connected to another 1st that can be attributed to "western" man which is the nomadic Scythians and Sarmatians who the later Huns and Mongols carbon copied.

These mummies seem to have been very attractive people. This goes against the so-called BS man is progressively getting "better". Maybe man is devolving rather than evolving? For ancient people they were very large.
Many legends about huge people in times past. Like the Giants of Bashan, a town in Syria where the people were MASSIVE. Acrhaeological sites and historical records prove they were more than mere legend.

On the video itself it is excellent. It should be on DVD. Funny, how the stupidest, innane garbage seems to be on the cutting edge with availability and truly mind-expanding and educating programs lumber towards the 21st century.

Buy this and learn something new for once instead of rehashed history is bunk slop.

Here is what one person wrote about these mummies:

"One of the most famous of the Tarim Basin mummies is the body of a young woman known as "The Beauty of Loulan". Dressed in a felt cap and colourful robes, she has a high cheek-boned face and is clearly Caucasian. Her face is so well-preserved that you can see all of her long eyelashes. She was buried with a beautifully-woven basket of grain besides her, as were many other mummies found in the area.
The most famous male mummy, a bearded blue-eyed man nicknamed "Ur-David" by archaeologist Victor Mair of the University of Pennsylvania, looks as if he might sit up at any moment and shake your hand. His skin and soft tissue is virtually intact, even down to the tattoos on his face, and his colourful clothes look as though they could have been woven yesterday.
This mummy is one of several which Mair "rediscovered" in 1988 in a room in the Museum of Urumqi. Unfortunately, this museum does not have temperature and humidity controls, so that, ironically, the mummies are now starting to deteriorate. Mair and others are fighting to get the mummies properly preserved, but problems abound, and not merely those of technical know-how or financing. The Xinjiang Ugyur Autonomous Province is a politically sensitive area, and the Chinese authorities do not want the mummies to become a rallying point for the non-Chinese population."

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating!, October 10, 2005

By 

Dhaval Vyas (Dallastown, PA U.S.A) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nova: Mysterious Mummies of China [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This NOVA program is just fascinating. It reveals mummies in China that have western and caucasian characteristics! I didn't even now the ancient Chinese practiced the art of mummification. It also shows a group of people in China who look like they are 60 percent Caucasoid and 40 percent oriential. Check it out if you can find it.