Outrage over Kyrgyz mummy’s burial

BiShKEK: Scientists have called for Kyrgyzstan’s only mummy to be immediately dug back up after the 1,500-year-old relic was taken from a museum and hastily reburied on the eve of a presidential election in a decision celebrated by selfprofessed psychics.

The female mummy was put back in the ground in mid-October after a sudden ruling by a state commission, in the same dusty corner of Southern Kyrgyzstan where it was discovered in 1956.

The decision was made despite strong opposition from the only archaeologist on the commission.

Meanwhile, culture minister Tugelbai Kazakov, who played the decisive role in the call, resigned on Saturday.

Kazakov said the mummy had been largely neglected by scientists and the country lacked the finances to keep it in good condition.

But some have said the timing of the reburial -- on the eve of a bitterly fought presidential election – indicates the influence of superstitions that have gripped the Central Asian country’s turbulent politics.

The reburial decision was celebrated by self-styled psychics, who warned that disaster loomed if the mummy remained vacuum-packed in a state museum.

Self-described medium Zamira Muratbekova claimed she received a message from the spiritual world commanding authorities to rebury the mummy.

“By reburying her we saved ourselves from blood-letting at the election,” Muratbekova said, adding that heeding scientists’ calls to re-exhume the body would be a grave mistake.

“Before, the spirits spoke to us in terms of suggestions, but now they are giving us orders.”

Kadycha Tashbayeva, the country’s head archaeologist who sat on the commission, indicated the deci- sion may have been influenced by the advice of psychics.

“You would think these people are just cultists and marginals, but they talk, and then the state echoes their position,” Tashbayeva said.

While Islam is the main religion in Kyrgyzstan, shamanic practices and cultural superstition also have deep roots in the former Soviet country of six million people.

Outgoing President Almazbek Atambayev has condemned the mummy’s reburial, blaming “pseudo-Muslims” who “believe every clairvoyant”.

Archaeologists around the world condemned the reburial as a backwards step for science.

“Exhume the mummy and put it back in a sealed chamber in the museum immediately,” Victor Mair, a professor in the Chinese language and literature department at the University of Pennsylvania, said.

Mair studied the so-called Tarim mummies, hundreds of which were discovered in Xinjiang, China, that borders Kyrgyzstan.

Mair said the mummy “has tremendous value in filling in the gap” as a case study between Xinjiang’s Tarim Basin and Western Eurasia.

Exhume the mummy and put it back in a sealed chamber in the museum immediately.

Victor Mair