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# Mummy of a presumed merchant of the 4th or 5th century from Tarim and the oldest cheese
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/predpolagaetsia-chto-muzhchina-v-kostiume-iz-evropeiskikh-materialov-byl-torgovtsem/
- Published: 2017-12-05T07:32:03.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T19:04:58.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archaeology, The East, Ethnography

The man in a costume made of European materials is presumed to have been a merchant. His burial dates from the 4th to 5th century AD. The man stood about 2 metres tall; beneath the mask with its gold appliqué lay a fair beard, and long chestnut hair gathered at the nape. He is one of the younger Tarim mummies, the others being estimated at 4,000 to 3,800 years old. The remarkable preservation of the bodies is explained by the arid climate and the salt-laden soil. In that same Tarim basin, where a river once flowed and a group of Caucasoids, apparently from the Altai, evidently lived, archaeologists also found the oldest piece of cheese and four-thousand-year-old trousers.