05/31/2026
How did the bones of more than 800 people from distant parts of the world end up at a remote lake nearly 16,000 feet (4,800m) high in the Himalayas?
Hundreds of human skeletons lie scattered around Roopkund, a glacial lake in northern India known as “Skeleton Lake.” First brought to global attention in 1942, the site was long thought to be the resting place of pilgrims killed by a catastrophic hailstorm more than 1,000 years ago.
But DNA analysis published in 2019 revealed a far more complicated story. The remains did not belong to a single group or a single event. Some individuals were South Asians who died between the 7th and 10th centuries AD, while others had ancestry linked to the eastern Mediterranean, including Crete, and died in the 19th century.
Why people from such distant regions ended up at this isolated Himalayan lake remains unknown. Nearly 80 years after its discovery, Roopkund continues to be one of archaeology’s most puzzling unsolved mysteries.
📸: Atish Waghwase
📸: Awanish Tirkey
