Jottings from the Granite Studio

The question of certain groups of “Chinese” being distantly related to ancient wanderers from as far west as Europe is one of those subjects in the China history field that, like mildew in the bath or a chip in the car’s windshield, seems a matter of minor importance is both omnipresent and vaguely troubling. In 1998, the PBS series Nova did a piece on a group of mummies at a museum in Urumchi with distinctly ‘caucasian’ features. The long reddish-blond hair and European features of the preserved bodies convinced some scholars that an ancient settlement existed in the Takla Makan desert that was a kind of crossroads between Europe and Asia.

Today the Telegraph is reporting from Gansu, “Residents of a remote Chinese village [Liqian] are hoping that DNA tests will prove one of history’s most unlikely legends — that they are descended from Roman legionaries lost in antiquity.” Villagers are born with blonde locks and reddish wavy hair. Their skin is ruddy and their facial features…how to put this…look vaguely Roman. Richard Spencer writes:

The town’s link with Rome was first suggested by a professor of Chinese history at Oxford in the 1950s. Homer Dubs pulled together stories from the official histories, which said that Liqian was founded by soldiers captured in a war between the Chinese and the Huns in 36BC, and the legend of the missing army of Marcus Crassus, a Roman general.

In 53BC Crassus was defeated disastrously and beheaded by the Parthians, a tribe occupying what is now Iran, putting an end to Rome’s eastward expansion.

But stories persisted that 145 Romans were taken captive and wandered the region for years. Prof Dubs theorised that they made their way as a mercenary troop eastwards, which was how a troop “with a fish-scale formation” came to be captured by the Chinese 17 years later.

He said the “fish-scale formation” was a reference to the Roman “tortoise”, a phalanx protected by shields on all sides and from above. Gu Jianming, who lives near Liqian, said it had come as a surprise to be told he might be descended from a European imperial army. But then the birth of his daughter was also a surprise. Gu Meina, now six, was born with a shock of blonde hair. “We shaved it off a month after she was born but it just grew back the same colour,” he said. “At school they call her ‘yellow hair’. Before we were told about the Romans, we had no idea about this. We are poor and have no family temple, so we don’t know about our ancestors.”

Needless to say there are skeptics but whether the tests are conclusive or not, one of the more interesting aspects of this story is the enthusiasm that some of the villagers have shown toward their possible Roman ancestry. Part of this is no doubt the scent of tourist dollars (or lira) flowing into the village. But the stories of some villagers born with “Roman” features suggest that the tests might offer a kind of vindication after years of discrimination and odd looks. Some of the features described by Spencer were even treated as “medical” conditions. The idea that genetics might be at work had until recently been rejected. As the article notes, under Mao theories of “foreign” ancestry for Chinese were discouraged. (In fact, some scientists in China still dismiss the notion of a single African human ancestor and support a thesis called the “Regional theory” of human evolution followed by stories of an ancient Asian primate known as the “Shu Ape.”)

That a specific group of Roman soldiers is responsible for the genetic anomalies of Liqian village seems far-fetched. But if nothing else, the mummies of Takla Makan and the villagers of Liqian call attention to Central Asia, not just as a rest stop on the Silk Road, but as a center of civilization in and of itself down through time.

Be sure to read Richard Spencer’s excellent article and take a look at the audio photojournal of his visit to Liqian village.