![]() ![]() In 2016, we returned to Upper Mustang for more exploration, and to finally go through the items uncovered in Rhirhi, in caves high above Samdzong, and more. The significance of the finds that day and others wouldn't be known for another year. Dirty work: Pete Athans holsters a hammer after extracting a large horse mandible from the shaft tombs high above Samdzong, Upper Mustang, Nepal. While the bones were plentiful, other artifacts we sadly missing: Rhirhi, as we knew, had been plundered over the years, human remains left behind while valuable artifacts had been carted off and sold on the black markets.Įventually, all was catalogued and bagged, and we rappelled back down from Rhirhi to wash up, emerging from the caves of the dead to the land of the living. Some were marked with ochre, a ruddy red barely visible on long bones this would later be determined to have been applied long after death and burial, likely in a later era in hopes of purifying the cave of past pagan evil. A rib here, a vertebra next, some tarsals and phalanges, then more ribs. Archaeologist Mark Aldenderfer works in the dust of Rhi Rhi Cave - one of many we explored in Upper Mustang - unearthing 3000 year old human remains.įor hours Mark and his team from the Nepal Ministry of Archeology dug through the dust, hunched over in the hand-carved cave, chipped out of the rock several millennia before by a people little known and less understood. His team 2 had explored it previously, but not completely, and he believed within its confines lay more human remains, possibly some of the oldest yet found in the region. ![]() One cave - Rhirhi - held particular interest for our archeologist, Mark Aldenderfer. Dotting the towering walls chiseled by the Kali, in nearly every valley and on every aspect, are caves myriad caves, over 10,000 of them, whittled from the mountainsides over centuries, big and small, new and old, some easily reached by foot and others requiring aid climbing or long rappels to access. We came here, though, not so much to marvel and look at this wild landscape, but rather to marvel at, look at, and investigate what is in this landscape. The Kali Gandaki River cuts a dramatic swathe through the landscape of Upper Mustang, Nepal, leaving sweeping cliff faces which are pocked with myriad caves, some up to 3500 years old. The Kali gets credit also for the sculpted landscape, her rushing waters carving sweeping buttresses of cobbled stone and impossibly deep canyons the deepest in the world, called the Andha Galchi or Kali Gandaki Gorge, runs between Annapurna and Dhaulagiri, with a vertical relief of over 18,000 feet. The latter comes from her remarkable course, sliding out from the Nhubine Glacier on the Tibetan border, joining forces with other streams and flows until she becomes the ferocious life-giver (and sometimes destroyer) of the region, providing water to this arid realm. Slicing like a scythe through the heart of Upper Mustang is the mighty Kali Gandaki, her name invoking both the fierce goddess Kali - consort of Shiva and destroyer of evil - and also the dark color of the river. High, dry, and dusty, it's a canvas of earth tones pocked with splashes of vibrancy where humans have settled and somehow persuaded crops to grow. Tucked in the rain shadow of the Nepal Himalaya, the region is politically Nepalese, but definitively Tibetan in all other aspects. The landscape of Upper Mustang is jagged, raw, ethereal. Ruins of an ancient Buddhist chorten accent the spectacular landscape of Upper Mustang, Nepal. It took some time - 22 years to be precise - but in August 2015 I rumbled in a rickety jeep with a team of academics, climbers, and archeologists into Upper Mustang. 1 Ah, heck, let's be honest - I wanted to be like Charles. I wanted to go to Mustang, I wanted to learn and explore and help unravel some of this story of Himalayan anthropology. Charles was one of the first outsiders to enter the Kingdom in the modern era, and among countless points of interest, he was particularly focused on caves.caves little known and barely studied, part of ancient Mustang, containing pre-Buddhist documents, artifacts, and remains, shreds from the fabric of time somehow surviving to the modern era. We sat on the floor, mesmerized by his tales of this semi-autonomous kingdom of northern Nepal, annexed in 1795 but remaining largely unchanged in all ways. Charles Ramble, a British anthropologist and academic, spoke Indiana Jones-like (albeit with an accent, higher intellect, and less cowboy fanfare) to our entire SIT-Nepal program. The local people figured out centuries ago how to irrigate with waters from the Kali Gandaki River, and eke out a living in this inhospitable climate. The village of Chuksang, Upper Mustang, Nepal, glows green in a harsh, desert landscape. ![]()
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