Outrage after Kyrgyzstan reburies its only 1,500-year-old mummy

Minister says lack of funds to maintain it forced decision, but critics see role of psychics

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 in the same dusty corner of southern Kyrgyzstan where it was discovered in 1956 after a sudden ruling by a state commission.

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

Superstition

The reburial decision was celebrated by self-styled psychics in the Muslim-majority state, who had 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. “She never died,” Muratbekova told AFP.

“When they first found her she was still alive. She was like a sleeping girl.

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

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.

In 2011, lawmakers ritually slaughtered seven sheep in parliament to exorcise “evil spirits”. Outgoing President Almazbek Atambayev has condemned the mummy’s reburial, blaming “pseudo-Muslims” who “believe every clairvoyant”.