Enlarge By Wang da Gang On March 27, the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, Calif., unveils the "Secrets of the Silk Road: Mystery Mummies from China," exhibit, which includes "The Beauty of Xiaohe," a 3,800-year-old mummy discovered in the parched sands of the Tarim Basin in far western China. SCIENCE REPORTER TWEETS SCIENCE REPORTER TWEETS The mummies from western China's arid Tarim Basin are so well-preserved that the viewer can see their intricate clothing and eyelashes, and also that they are distinctly non-Asian in appearance. One mummy, affectionately dubbed the "Beauty of Xiaohe" by archaeologists, is so lifelike that she looks as if she's taking a nap. She has fair skin, round eyes, and a felt hat resembling an alpine head covering with a long feather stuck in the top. Three of these mummies, along with 150 artifacts, ranging from 2,000 to 4,000 years old, will be displayed for the first time in the USA in the Secrets of the Silk Road: Mystery Mummies From China exhibit on March 27 at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, Calif. The mummies' Caucasian appearance suggests that Bronze Age nomads speaking Indo-European languages from perhaps Russia and Ukraine brought culture, physical features and genes to parts of western China and may have also been the first to domesticate the horse, says Spencer Wells, who has studied the Tarim mummies and is director of the National Geographic Society's The Genographic Project. "I was shocked when I saw them. I thought, 'My goodness, they look like Europeans,' " says Victor Mair, a Chinese language and literature professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied the mummies since 1993 and is a co-author of The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples From the West. Some artifacts found with the mummies, including bronze and sheep bones, hint that Europeans brought technologies such as metallurgy and some domesticated animals to China, which may explain the European appearance of the mummies and suggest that trade between Europe and Asia existed nearly 4,000 years ago, Mair says. Mair adds that recent DNA research suggests that men from the West were "linking up with local women, the people in the central part of Asia." These mummies are better preserved than some of the typical Egyptian mummies, thanks to a combination of the dry conditions and salty soils in the Tarim Basin and the preservation techniques of the Chinese during this time, Mair says. Evidence suggests that the Chinese would reopen tombs to add new bodies, which allowed them to learn from their mistakes and improve their preservation practices, including burying bodies upright, Mair says. Although the artifacts imply that trade between Europe and Asia existed during the Bronze Age, the Silk Road, a trade route between different parts of Asia, Europe and Africa, did not formally develop until about 138 B.C., during the Han Dynasty, Mair says. The exhibit features not only artifacts from the mummies and the early formation of the Silk Road but also from the first millennium, including intricate silk shoes, Mair says. "It's amazing that they (the mummies) have actually come to the United States for the first time," Wells says. "This is a culture that very few people know about. Western archaeologists have only discovered these mummies relatively recently. It's a very exciting thing." The exhibit, which closes in Santa Ana on July 25, moves to the Houston Museum of Natural Science Aug. 28 and stays until Jan. 2. From Feb. 5 to June 5, the exhibit will be at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more