The Princess (or Beauty) of Xiaohe
I love mummies. I've loved them since I was 10 and researching the living hell out of Egyptian mummification and embalming. It was to such a point that my history teacher in middle school called me the expert. But I didn't know of this one until much later. I don't remember exactly when I saw her first, although she did seem very familiar when I started learning more about her. I knew about the Tarim mummies since the age I got my interest, but didn't much pay attention to them. They were just in the back of my mind, so to speak. Then came Kazakhstan. Then I thought back about these very mummies after an exhibition I'll mention later.
The Princess of Xiaohe (Little River Princess, or Beauty of Xiaohe), whose real name is lost to time, was a young woman who was buried in the Xiaohe Cemetery, which is situated not very far from Loulan and Lop Nur lake (another dried up lake in a desert) in western China, and discovered in 2003. She died around 3800 years ago and is unusually well-preserved due to the climatic conditions of her resting place. Dry, hot, salty, and with her boat-shaped coffin wrapped in cowhide, which tightly sealed it as the hide dried and retracted. Many other graves in this cemetery had been disturbed by grave robbers, but hers was part of those that were spared. Despite her nickname, she was likely not a real princess, but her beauty and state of preservation granted her this nickname. There is another "beauty" mummy of European descent that she is frequently mixed up with, the Beauty of Loulan, but they look nothing alike.
As for why she has her page on my blog and is tied to the most recent variation of my nickname, it's because I feel that I've regained a part of myself since I really learned about her. I was at an exhibition about mummies and the artist view of her felt a lot like... my actual form, so to speak. I don't mean that I'm not satisfied with my current appearance, I am, but this look exactly felt like the one my soul, maybe, takes, or how I appear in dreams of people who don't know me as my current incarnation. Either an "average" appearance or the personality my soul feels represents it the best. I can't explain it really. I just know I found a fragment of myself, be it symbolic (her symbolizing my Tocharian lifetimes as a whole) or simply meeting an old friend, if not my own past self. I don't know if we have any incarnational tie nor can I even prove reincarnation is a thing, but if it turns out this was actually my body 3800 years ago, I'd be quite amused yet not really surprised about it.