“Skeleton Lake” aka Roopkund Lake
Deep in the Indian Himalayas, situated ~16,500 feet above sea level, sits Roopkund Lake. Most of the year, the lake lay frozen in a snow covered valley. But during warmer seasons, a scene much more gruesome appears. Lining the shore of Roopkund Lake are the skeletal remains of nearly 800 individuals.
The discovery initially baffled investigators. What became of these individuals? How did such a massive number of people end up in Skeleton Lake? In an unpublished study, researchers collected data from five sets of remains and determined that they were about 1,500-years-old. However, new genetic testing on 38 sets of remains has determined that these remains were not all dumped at once, but perhaps brought or came to this site overtime. “Some skeletons were more ancient than others, suggesting that many were interred at the lake lifetimes apart.”
Of the remains studied, it has been found that these individuals were not one and the same. Some were South Asian, others from East Asian, the Mediterranean, Greece, and Crete. Some remains dated back between the 7th-10th century, while a seperate group of 14 individuals dated to the 17th-20th century. This small group was said to have died a thousand years after the initial individuals at Roopkund in a single event.
No weapons were found, which rules out death in battle. Researchers have stated that all individuals were healthy at time of death, which also rules out a mass epidemic. Desperate to determine how and why these remains ended up in Skeleton Lake, they began looking to local folklore, songs, and writings. They found a song, one which described a procession during the Raj Jat pilgrimage, which worships the goddess Nanda Devi. The song states that the Gods became “enraged” and “struck the group down with ‘iron balls thrown from the sky.’” These “iron balls” have been interpreted by researchers to be from a severe hailstorm. This theory is supported by unhealed skull fractures, which large hailstones could have caused.
