A REMARKABLE 2,000 year old “
sleeping beauty” has emerged from a
Russian reservoir in
Siberia. The mummified lady of the lake was dressed in a silk skirt in her grave and a pouch of pine nuts lay on her chest to take to the afterlife.
Archeologists believe she is a young ‘Hun woman’ who wore a jet gemstone buckle on her beaded belt.
A significant fall in the water level of a reservoir upstream of the giant 794ft tall Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectricity dam on the River Yenisei led to the burial site of the ancient woman - as old as Christ - reappearing on the shoreline.
“In her birch bark make-up box, she had a Chinese mirror,” reported The Siberian Times.
“Near her remains - accidentally mummified - was a Hun-style vase.”
Archeologist Dr Marina Kilunovskaya, from St Petersburg’s Institute of History of Material Culture, said: “During excavations the mummy of a young woman was found on the shore of the reservoir.
“The lower part of the body was especially well preserved ...
“This is not a classic mummy - in this case, the burial was tightly closed with a stone lid, enabling a process of natural mummification.”
Remarkably, the mummification partially survived her burial plot being drowned during the Soviet era in the early 1980s.
A recent fall in the water level of the reservoir in Tuva region led to her reappearance after two millennia.
“The mummy was in quite a good condition, with soft tissues, skin, clothing and belongings intact,” said a scientist.
Natalya Solovieva, the institute's deputy director, said: 'On the mummy are what we believe to be silk clothes, a beaded belt with a jet buckle, apparently with a pattern…
“Near the head was found a round wooden box covered with birch-bark in which lay a Chinese mirror in a felt case.”
Close to the young woman were two vessels, one a Hun-type vase.
“There was a funeral meal in the vessels, and on her chest a pouch with pine nuts.”
Restoration experts have started working on the mummy.
Analysis of the find is expected to yield a wealth of information on her life and times.
Scientists received a grant from the Russian Geographical Society to rescue the unique archeological finds in flooded areas.