Roopkund Secret Getting MurkIer

“Roopkund” is a famous lake in the Himalayas whose name and fame are just self-contradictory. The high-altitude beautiful glacial lake lying in the lap of Trishul massif of the Himalayas, is littered with skeletons. bones and skulls of many dead people. The area around the lake is uninhabited and surrounded by rock-strewn glaciers and snow-clad mountains. Recent researchers have determined that skeletons found at the lake in Uttarakhand belonged to faraway Greeks!

The skeletons, discovered at Roopkund Lake, which sits at an altitude of approximately 16,404 feet, were analysed using DNA samples to finally determine the ethnic origin of the people they may have belonged to. The stunning discovery, according to these results the first group of skeletons appear to have belonged to Greek people originating from the Eastern Mediterranean. The bones are believed to belong to people who lived between 1600 and 1900 AD. But there is a gap in the whole story. There is no local legend about the group of Greeks visiting the area in the 19th century that could help solve the mystery.

But a local fable which persisted long before the skeletons were found, claims that a group of people on a pilgrimage to a holy site were killed at the lake during a heavy hailstorm in the ninth century. The dating of the skeletons could lend credence to the wonder. Another theory says that the skeletons belong to soldiers, who were struck by the massive hailstone while on the trek. One more claim that these belong to a king’s family, cursed by a Goddess to die this way. On the contrary, as per local legend so impressed was Goddess Parvati to see her own beauty manifest in the water reflection, that the lake was named, Roopkund _ Roop is a Hindi connotation for beauty, and kund refers to pool.

Source: Himalayan News Chronicle