“Grandfather, tell them about his head,” Rou hinted in a voice barely above a whisper. She had seemingly relaxed enough to form full sentences so long as no one was paying her any attention.
Both Griffin and Cassie had learned by now not to react every time she spoke. They kept their eyes firmly focused on the trove keeper.
“Ah, yes,” Jun said. “In some accounts, the Yellow Emperor is said to have had a deformed cranium.”
Cassie shrugged. “I couldn’t tell from my vision since he was wearing a battle helmet.”
“Deliberate cranial deformation was practiced by many overlord tribes,” Jun said.
The pythia gasped in disbelief. “You mean they did that to themselves intentionally?”
“At first the result may have been accidental,” the trove keeper explained. “Nomads swaddled their infants against a cradle board to keep them still during long migrations. The head, bound tightly to a board for hours on end, if not days, would eventually be remolded with a sloping forehead. Because the nomads became the ruling elite in whatever territories they conquered, a deformed cranium was viewed as a sign of high status.”
“Yeesh!” Cassie exclaimed. “Any kid who spent the first year of its life in a straight-jacket would be likely to develop some serious psychological issues later on. Actually, swaddling might go a long way toward explaining why overlords were generally so bad-tempered.”
“Have I convinced you yet that your blond man is the Yellow Emperor?” Jun teased.
“I’m coming around,” Cassie joked back. “What else you got?”
Jun obliged by offering more evidence. “The Yellow Emperor engaged in warfare with other nomadic tribes like his own. There is a mention of a battle against ‘the forces of the Nine Li under their bronze-headed leader Chi Yu and his eighty-one horned and four-eyed brothers.’”
“If we were to interpret that passage figuratively instead of mythologically,” Griffin interjected, “‘bronze-headed’ might refer to a bronze war helmet like those worn by overlords. Similarly, the horned and four-eyed brothers might mean eighty-one warriors with Caucasian eyes who were wearing horned battle helmets.”
“Very good.” Jun nodded approvingly. “Now you’re seeing the facts behind the flowery language. But the most telling evidence of all is a comment made by a much later historian. He said that the Lord of the Yellow Earth governed and protected the black-haired people and that they were happy under his rule.” Jun raised his eyebrows quizzically, silently challenging Cassie to interpret.
“Black-haired,” she echoed. “As opposed to what? Everybody in China has black hair.” She paused to consider. “Unless, of course, the Yellow Emperor and his cronies weren’t brunettes.”
“Exactly,” Jun concurred.
“But there should be some yDNA indicating a Caucasian influence here,” the pythia insisted. “When we were in India, we found an overlord DNA signature all over the place.”
“I don’t believe the number of overlords who migrated to China was nearly as high,” Jun said. “While we see the same general population-flow coming from the northwest and traveling to the southeast, a much larger number of overlords targeted India instead of China.”
“It does make sense that there would be a very small genetic footprint this far east,” Griffin agreed. “If the local farmers were peaceful and willing to tolerate the newcomers, the overlords might have set themselves up as the ruling elite with very little trouble. Jun’s reference to the black-haired people being happy with the Yellow Emperor’s rule implies as much. Over the centuries, the overlords would have intermarried and become assimilated into the Chinese population without much fuss.”
Cassie threw her hands up in mock surrender. “OK, you win. I believe the Yellow Emperor was really a refugee from the steppes.”
“Jun has certainly made a compelling case,” Griffin agreed.
“Huang Di is credited with all sorts of inventions which set China on the path to advanced civilization. Of course, it’s far more likely that he and his tribe acquired those inventions from the agriculturalists they conquered along their migration route: astronomy, writing, weights and measures, silk weaving courtesy of Huang Di’s wife. All of these are inventions which would have been useful to a settled agricultural population, not to nomads.”
“Apparently the overlord rolling stone gathered quite a bit of moss and spread it to the ends of the earth,” the scrivener remarked.
“The Yellow emperor is said to have ruled the Yellow River valley for a hundred years from 2698 to 2598 BCE. That statement, I grant you, is most probably an exaggeration. The rest of what I’ve told you is fact rather than fiction.” Jun carefully rewrapped the compass-head and slid it back into the desk drawer before locking it. Giving a little bow, he said, “Thank you, Right Honorable pythia, for providing us with this valuable bit of information.”
Responding in kind, Cassie bobbed her head. “You’re most welcome, Hongshan Trove keeper Zhang Jun. It was my pleasure to be of assistance.”
The scrivener seemed amused by her rare attempt at formality.
“But this is not the reason you came here,” Jun protested. “Considering the service you’ve just rendered to us, Rou and I must devote all our efforts to helping you find your missing Minoan relic.”
The pythia glanced out the window worriedly. “Now that I’ve had a chance to absorb the vibe in Lanzhou, I’m fairly certain that the Minoans never stopped here at all.”
“Then we must accompany you farther east along the river,” Jun suggested. “There are other ancient sites you should examine.”
“Erlitou?” Rou suggested tentatively.
“Early who?” Cassie asked.
Jun laughed. “Erlitou was the capital of the Xia dynasty around 2000 BCE. My granddaughter
