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THE MUMMIES OF URLMCHI by Elizabeth Wayland Barber W. W. Norton & Company, 1999 240 pages; $35.00
THE MODERN CITY OF URUMCHI (Urumqi), capital of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China, is a bit off the beaten track, and it's not hard to see why. Aside from the Chinese atomic test site (off-limits to visitors), the territory's most prominent feature is the Tarim Basin, an arid heath sandwiched between Mongolia and Tibet, where the winds are biting and the temperature swings are extreme. In ancient times, however, Urumchi was well known to the traders who plied the old Silk Road, an ancient thoroughfare for commerce between Europe and the Orient. Today's Western visitors, however,...