They Found 167 Mummies. Then the Desert Hid Them for 66 Years.

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:01]The first hint that something strange was buried in the Taklamakan came in 1934.

[00:00:07]A Swedish archaeologist named Folke Bergman, working under the Asia explorer Sven Hedin, was led to a low ridge of wind-blown sand in the middle of nothing by a local hunter named Ördek who had stumbled on the site more than 20 years earlier.

[00:00:23]On top of the ridge, a forest of wooden posts, dozens of them.

[00:00:28]Some carved into the shape of oars, some shaped into phallic and vulva grave markers 2 m tall.

[00:00:35]Underneath the sand, graves.

[00:00:38]Bergman excavated 12 of them, sketched the rest, and named the site the Small River Cemetery number five. Then he left.

[00:00:47]The expedition moved on. The site, 200 km from the nearest road, was swallowed back into the dunes. It stayed lost for 66 years.