Who Were the Mediterranean Travellers Found at a Himalayan Lake?

At about 5,000 metres in the Indian Himalayas, a lake no more than a few dozen metres across holds the bones of hundreds of people. A forest ranger came across them in 1942. For decades the explanation was a legend: a king, a queen and their court struck down by a hailstorm on a pilgrimage to the goddess Nanda Devi. In 2019, ancient DNA and radiocarbon dating showed that the skeletons come from at least two separate events about a thousand years apart, and that one group had ancestry from the eastern Mediterranean. This video goes through what is documented, what the 2019 study found, and what is still only a theory. Chapters 0:00 Intro 0:38 The lake 1:37 The legend 2:51 The DNA 3:58 The strangers 5:31 What is known #Roopkund #SkeletonLake #UnsolvedMysteries #Himalayas #AncientDNA Sources Wikipedia, Roopkund: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roopkund Harney et al., "Ancient DNA from the skeletons of Roopkund Lake reveals Mediterranean migrants in India", Nature Communications 10, 3670 (2019): https://www.nature.com/articles/s4146... Kristin Romey, "DNA study deepens mystery of 'Skeleton Lake' in the Himalayas", National Geographic (20 August 2019): https://www.nationalgeographic.com/cu... Real images (Wikimedia Commons, public domain or CC0) Nanda Devi from a hill above Milam: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Garhwal Himalayas from the ISS (NASA): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... The Himalayas (NASA): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Haze along the Himalaya Front Range, satellite view (NASA): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Map of Kumaon and Garhwal, 1846: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Divisions of Uttarakhand: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Haridwar, Gateway to Hari, 19th-century engraving: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Hailstones on grass (illustration of hail, not at Roopkund): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Map of Candia (Crete), 1669: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... The Ottoman Empire around 1800 (CC0): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Stock footage: Pixabay (clips by TungArt7, danielp87, 5598375, xat-ch, videohive, Relaxing_Guru, Engin_Akyurt and Swkclicks), used as generic mountain atmosphere only, not footage of Roopkund. Many pictures are AI-generated illustrations, not photographs of the real lake, people, objects or places; this video is marked as altered or synthetic content. The Open Verdict: weigh the evidence, reach your own verdict.