Magyar News, 2004. szeptember-2005. augusztus (15. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2005-07-01 / 11-12. szám
At the foot of the hills rich grazing areas Territories that became sand dunes nie oasis ever since 895 AD when marauding Magyar horseman settled on this patch of the Carpathian basin now known as Hungary. Almost from that moment, Hungarian - or Magyar as they still call themselves - have posed the question: Who are we, and where did we come from? Today, a millennium later, Hungarian anthropologists believe they have found the answer in the most faraway of places: the Xinjiang province of north-west China. Since 1986, excavations of ancient graveyards and anthropological studies have yielded proof that this area, traditionally known as the 'Uigur' region, is the origin of the Hungarian people. "Every journey to Xinjiang is a revelation to me," said István Kiszely, the anthropologist who led the first expedition nine years ago, and returns annually. "The first time we went, we excavated a graveyard and found exactly the same anthropological objects as were found in Hungary. They had the same traditions [as 9th and 10 th century Hungarian] for burying their dead. No other people had these customs. Not the Uralic people. Not the Slavic people." 1,200 graves were uncovered in Urumchi, the capital of Xinjiang. But according to Kiszely, the most persuasive proof of Hungary's kinship with the northern Chinese resides among the living. "In almost every sense these people are the same as Hungarian," explained Kiszely. "In the biological sense, in blood graphs, even in their folk art." According to Kiszely's investigations, the traditional clothing, motifs, and music of the Xinjiang people is remarkably similar to the unique folk styles of the Hungarian peasantry. Other regional eccentricities of the Hungarian, ranging from heir penchant for spices in food and a sweet wine called Tokaji, also links them with the ancient Uigurs. Kiszely claims that "inscriptions" found in the Gobi desert dating back to 800 BC can be interpreted using ancient Hungarian script. But the most moving words Kiszely found in China came during his first expedition when listening to an ancient folk ballad telling of an Uigur tribe that embarked on a journey west a thousand years ago. History tells us that the ancient Uigurs were wanderers. But almost exclusively in the east. In the 7th Century they erected the city of Karakorum, and they founded an empire in Mongolia that reigned between 744 and 840 AD. But according to the ballad Kiszely heard ten years ago, only one Uigur tribe ventured west, and the song promised its people would one day return. The local reciting the poem were told of Kiszely's quest. "They received us as friends and relatives," Kiszely said. "This was a great moment for me." Kiszely's enthusiasm is not shared by all scholars. The findings in Xinjiang contradict the popularly held contention that the common ancestors of the Hungarian and the Finn originated in the Ural mountains, or beyond the Ural near the Ob River. Both the Finn and The map shows the Silk Road from the northern part of China through the Arab world into Europe ending at the Italian Rome Below there are a few faces that are very different from the Chinese characters
