Center to probe Rome-Gansu link
Source: Xinhua |
November 21, 2010, Sunday
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Print Edition
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CHINESE and Italian anthropologists this week established an Italian studies center at a top university in northwest China to determine whether some Western-looking residents of the area are the descendants of a lost Roman army of ancient times.
Experts at the Italian Studies Center at Lanzhou University in Gansu Province will conduct excavations on a section of the Silk Road, a 7,000-kilometer-long trade route that linked Asia and Europe more than 2,000 years ago, to see if it can be proved a legion of lost Roman soldiers settled in China, said Professor Yuan Honggeng, head of the center.
"We hope to prove the legend by digging and discovering more evidence of China's early contact with the Roman Empire," said Yuan.
Before Marco Polo's travels to China in the 13th century, the only known contact between the two empires was a visit by Roman diplomats in the year AD 166.
Chinese archeologists were therefore surprised in the 1990s to find the remains of an ancient fortification in Liqian, a remote town in Yongchang County on the edge of the Gobi desert, which was strikingly similar to Roman defense structures.
They were even more astonished to find Western-looking people with green, deep-set eyes, long and hooked noses and blonde hair in the area.
Bull-fighting
Though the villagers said they had never traveled outside the county, they worshipped bulls and their favorite game was similar to the ancient Romans' bull-fighting dance.
DNA tests in 2005 confirmed some of the villagers were indeed of foreign origin, leading many experts to conclude they are the descendants of the ancient Roman army headed by General Marcus Crassus.
In 53 BC, Crassus was defeated and beheaded by the Parthians, a tribe occupying what is now Iran, putting an end to Rome's eastward expansion. But a 6,000-strong army led by Crassus's eldest son apparently escaped and was never found again.
Though some anthropologists are convinced the foreign-looking villagers in Yongchang County are the descendants of the army men, others are not so certain.
"The county is on the Silk Road, so there were many chances for trans-national marriages," said Yang Gongle of Beijing Normal University. "The 'foreign' origin of the Yongchang villagers, as proven by the DNA tests, doesn't necessarily mean they are of ancient Roman origin."
The university's new research body is a platform for experts to further research the subject but "the research work will certainly be complicated," said Italian Ambassador to China Riccardo Sessa.
Experts at the Italian Studies Center at Lanzhou University in Gansu Province will conduct excavations on a section of the Silk Road, a 7,000-kilometer-long trade route that linked Asia and Europe more than 2,000 years ago, to see if it can be proved a legion of lost Roman soldiers settled in China, said Professor Yuan Honggeng, head of the center.
"We hope to prove the legend by digging and discovering more evidence of China's early contact with the Roman Empire," said Yuan.
Before Marco Polo's travels to China in the 13th century, the only known contact between the two empires was a visit by Roman diplomats in the year AD 166.
Chinese archeologists were therefore surprised in the 1990s to find the remains of an ancient fortification in Liqian, a remote town in Yongchang County on the edge of the Gobi desert, which was strikingly similar to Roman defense structures.
They were even more astonished to find Western-looking people with green, deep-set eyes, long and hooked noses and blonde hair in the area.
Bull-fighting
Though the villagers said they had never traveled outside the county, they worshipped bulls and their favorite game was similar to the ancient Romans' bull-fighting dance.
DNA tests in 2005 confirmed some of the villagers were indeed of foreign origin, leading many experts to conclude they are the descendants of the ancient Roman army headed by General Marcus Crassus.
In 53 BC, Crassus was defeated and beheaded by the Parthians, a tribe occupying what is now Iran, putting an end to Rome's eastward expansion. But a 6,000-strong army led by Crassus's eldest son apparently escaped and was never found again.
Though some anthropologists are convinced the foreign-looking villagers in Yongchang County are the descendants of the army men, others are not so certain.
"The county is on the Silk Road, so there were many chances for trans-national marriages," said Yang Gongle of Beijing Normal University. "The 'foreign' origin of the Yongchang villagers, as proven by the DNA tests, doesn't necessarily mean they are of ancient Roman origin."
The university's new research body is a platform for experts to further research the subject but "the research work will certainly be complicated," said Italian Ambassador to China Riccardo Sessa.
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