Tarim Basin

*****
As of January, 2024 this database has been moved to an ArcGIS Storymap and no longer being updated as a text file. For the most recent version, please see: Tattooed Human Mummies [ArcGIS story map] (https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.19339.05925/2)
******

The following presents a global data set identifying naturally- and deliberately preserved tattooed human remains from the archaeological record. The initial version of this list (Version 1.0) was compiled in 2016 for inclusion as Table 1 in the journal article “The World’s Oldest Tattoos” (Deter-Wolf et al. 2016). Benoît Robitaille, Lars Krutak, and Sébastien Galliot all contributed to that initial effort.

Entries in the data table are organized broadly by date, and rely on direct dating wherever possible. Where radiocarbon data is available, dates represent calibrated ranges. Each entry also includes documentation as to the associated archaeological culture, site, and significant source material. At the present time, unpublished and/or unprovenienced specimens from museums and private collections are not generally included in the data set.

""The common understanding of early Chinese diplomacy largely is informed by the term 'tributary system:' during the Han period, foreign entities mainly engaged with the Chinese empire in order to secure economic profit. This view is based on the assumption that the rendition of tribute (gòng 貢) usually was reciprocated with 'counter-gifts' by the court. Accordingly, to the eyes of all foreigners, delivering tribute was only a 'cloak for trade' devoid of any notion of submission. On the other hand, the Chinese court is believed to have silently tolerated this kind of 'economic exchange' because receiving tribute was equalled with at least nominal acceptance of Chinese suzerainty and as a manifestation of its claim to universal power.
The situation as it is depicted in the transmitted sources, however, is far more complex. By retracing different methods of diplomatic interaction to Chunqiu and Zhanguo times, I shall demonstrate that Han diplomacy was far from having been an ideological exercise. I am also going to show that the Han court continued to use established strategies of diplomatic interaction by adapting them to the necessities of the time.""

The Tarim Basin lies in the modern province of Xinjiang, within the borders of the People’s Republic of China. However, while it may lie within these borders, the Tarim Basin has always been a hotly contested battleground: in-between several great powers - Great Britain’s Raj, China and Russia - the territory was desired for its rich oil levels and other natural resources. The position of Tarim Basin in the middle of great powers today can be seen as an extension of the position of the Tarim Basin in 150 BCE. Here, the Tarim Basin was in between the expansive Xiongnu Polity and the Han Empire. The “Western Regions”, as the area was called by both powers, were a major source of conflict between the Xiongnu and the Han, as the region was considered a great source of revenue. However, thus far, the role of the Tarim Basin itself as an exchange hub in the intricate economic, political and cultural connections and processes between the Xiongnu and other localities in Central Asia has been less scrutinised, as opposed to respectively the connections between the Xiongnu and the Tarim Basin, and connections between the Tarim Basin and the Han Empire. Yet, there is a quite a number of sources that can shed light on the role of the Tarim Basin, which will be elaborated on further in the paper. The relevance of this research lies in the fact that it combines the research of the Hellenistic world with that of the Inner Asian steppe, something that has not yet been done in both spheres of research, primarily because both areas of research are already incredibly broad and require a diverse skill set in both archaeological and historical studies. Furthermore, it examines how processes in the Tarim Basin impacted the Xiongnu, which has not yet been done thus far.

The interpretation of the Niya Prakrit grapheme <ḱ> is an unsolved problem of the Kharoṣṭhī script. This article will argue that, at least in most cases, it represents Bactrian <þκ> /šk/. After a brief note on the palaeography of the akṣara and its attestations in other forms of Gāndhārī, Bactrian etymologies will be proposed for some Niya Prakrit words containing this grapheme <ḱ>. As some of these words have been considered before key witnesses to the Tocharian C hypothesis (Burrow 1935b; 1937: vii-ix), this renewed understanding of <ḱ> has broader consequences for the issue of the linguistic substrate in Niya Prakrit.

See also https://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?url=issue&journal_code=JA&issue=1&vol=309 for free download.

Citation: Schoubben, Niels (2021). Accent sign matters. The Niya Prakrit grapheme <ḱ> and its connection to Bactrian <þκ>. Journal asiatique, 309(1), 47–59.

The Mughal Emperor Zahīruddīn Muhammad Baber (Born: 14 February 1483 CE, Period of Reign 20 April 1526 CE – 26 December 1530 CE):  writes in his Memoirs, Tuzk e Babari:-
" In the hill country to the north-east (of Cabul) lies Kafferistan, such as Kattor and Gebrek."
General Cunningham identifies the name Katoor with Kitolo, the king of the Great Yuechi, who, in the beginning of the 5th Century, conquered Balkh and Gandhara, and whose son established the kingdom of the Little Yuechi at Peshawur. Later, the name appears in the Tarikh-e'-Binakiti and the Jami-ul-Tawarikh, Commissioned by Sultan Ghazan Khan.
" In the list of the Turk dynasty of Cabul kings, who preceded the Ghuznevides, the last is called Katoran, King of the Kators." "And Kank returned to his country and he was the last of the Kataurman kings."

The oasis of Khotan represents a fascinating crossroad of cultures and artistic influences mixed in a unique environment. Paintings, which are visually eloquent, yet very elusive with their mysterious symbolism, have fascinated scholars since the beginning of the 20th century, when they emerged from the sands of the Taklamakan desert. The oasis, one of the largest and most prosperous on the Silk Road, functioned as a transit point between the two huge cultural entities of India and China and, inevitably, absorbed inspirations from all the visitors passing through. It became a Buddhist stronghold whose monastic establishments were praised and where monks travelled to obtain sacred scriptures. Such a heterogeneous environment favored the birth of original artistic manifestations which in many cases resist a unanimous interpretation. For the large quantity of materials spread across different sites in the oasis of Khotan, a restrictive choice was made to better fit the format of this article. The site of Dandan Oilik has been selected as an example, principally because of the great variety of themes represented on mural paintings as well as on wooden votive panels and tablets. The primary goal of this study is to attempt to identify and classify the iconographies of deities belonging to an auxiliary Buddhist pantheon, therefore depictions of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are purposely left out. The aim is to describe what could be foreign or local admixtures to an iconographic heritage already heavy with significance and symbolism at its South Asian origins.

This hypothesis needs to be tested by archaeometallurgical and historical linguistic studies from an extended area from Ancient Far East to Ancient Near East. This is also an imperative in the context of a new start for Vedic and IE studies. Evidence of contact between Vedic and Tocharian has already been attested in the cognate expressions: ams'u (Vedic), ancu (Tocharian). The circular stones in funerary practices unite Tocharian and Dholavira. By the 6th century CE, the Brihat Samhita of Varahamihira also locates the Tusharas with Barukachcha (Bhroach) and Barbaricum (on the IndusDelta) near the sea in western India: bharukaccha.samudra.romaka. tushrah.. :(Brhatsamhita XVI.6). If contacts with area lived in by speakers of Kafiri (Nuristani) was a transit point, Tushara could also have arrived to settle in Barukachcha from this detour from Kyrgystan (Muztagh Ata), taking a caravan route south of the Oxus (Amu Darya) river. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tushara_Kingdom

What language did the people of Sarasvati-Sindhu doab river basins (with about 2,600 archaeological sites) speak? Given the evidence of Buddhist Hybrid Samskritam (BHS) in the Tarim Basin documents and the links between Rigvedic people and Tushara (Tocharian) in trade transactions of Soma (synonyms, metaphors: ams'u, ancu), a proto-BHS, or Proto-Indo-Aryan, or Early Indo-European, Mleccha (Meluhha) is suggested as the language of the metalworkers of the Bronze Age. Mleccha, 'copper' (Samskritam) provides the profession of Mleccha-speakers, 'metal workers', also referred to by cognate expressions: Milakkha (Pali), Meluhha (Akkadian on a Shu-ilishu cylinder seal). A reference to the metalworkers is contained in the expression used in Rigveda to denote the people in general by Rigveda Rishi Visvamitra: Bharatam Janam, 'lit. metalworker people'. Chandas, 'prosody' represented the liturgical version of an Indo-European language and Mleccha/Meluhha 'parole or speech' represented the administrative version of the language used predominantly by trader caravans (as attested by Tarim Mummies and the Tin Road from Asshur to Kanesh in Ancient Near East), by metalworkers, in general and by specialist cire perdue metalcasters, dhokra kamar, in particular. The expression, kamar is an Indo-European gloss: karmāˊra m. ʻ blacksmith ʼ RV. [EWA i 176 < stem *karmar -- ~ karman -- , but perh. with ODBL 668 ← Drav. cf. Tam. karumā ʻ smith, smelter ʼ whence meaning ʻ smith ʼ was transferred also to karmakāra -- ] Pa. kammāra -- m. ʻ worker in metal ʼ; Pk. kammāra -- , °aya -- m. ʻ blacksmith ʼ, A. kamār, B. kāmār; Or. kamāra ʻ blacksmith, caste of non -- Aryans, caste of fishermen ʼ; Mth.kamār ʻ blacksmith ʼ, Si. kam̆burā.
Md. kan̆buru ʻ blacksmith ʼ.(CDIAL 2898). kamar 'artisan, smith, smelter' (Santali) karum (Akkadian: kārum "quay, port, commercial district", plural kārū, from Sumerian kar "fortification (of a harbor), break-water" is also perhaps an expression related to karumā  'smith, smelter' or  khārun, 'the trough into which the blacksmith allows melted iron to flow after smelting' (Kashmiri, see below) of this Indian sprachbund.

The present scholarly consensus is that the Chinese Han dynasty military force (second century B.C.E.–second century C.E.), when it reached the city-oases of the southern and northern Taklamakan Desert (in the modern Xinjiang region of Western China), introduced new
agricultural and water techniques to the region. If this theory stands confirmed for some oases, such as Miran, Dunhuang and Turfan, via the famous tuntian 屯田 technique, the influence nevertheless is not only from one side. In fact, a great majority of the water systems still existing
today among the oases of the region are either a product of local invention or of Western influence. Among these, water tanks excavated on the site of old Niya 尼雅 (Uighur Nïya ;نىيە Southern Taklamakan), known since the Han dynasty as Jingjue 精絕, strike one with their
distinctive shape. They were discovered in the early twentieth century, but few scholars have taken the time to analyze in depth their historical and technical relationship with the site and with the cultural panorama of Southern Xinjiang. In this article, by examining a combination of archaeological, geological, and textual records, I intend to show that migrants from the Gandhara region (Pakistan) either introduced or developed a tank-based water technique within the agricultural, economic and perhaps religious systems of the Jingjue oasis during the Kroraina kingdom’s rule over the Southern Taklamakan territories (third to late fourth century).

Extant Romano-Coptic nalbinding from the Nile Valley and surrounding regions provides one of the most statistically significant populations of such material, consisting of over 100 specimens.

The technical variant used in approximately half the objects is misleadingly called Coptic or Tarim stitch. A preferred established term is cross-knit looping and personal examination of the Tarim basin finds has not revealed its presence there. The misnomer derives from the misinterpretation of a brief note in a broader work, compounded by unawareness of the variant’s oldest known occurrence from the Nahal Hemar cave.

The term Coptic stitch reflects a greater understanding of naming conventions for nalbinding variants. However, recent research indicates that multiple finds labeled as Coptic actually date to the Roman and Late Roman Eras. The nominal association with the Coptic Era is additionally misleading because half of the designated corpus displays a range of more complex variants.

This paper addresses the terminological imprecision, confusion about underlying fabric structures, and effects of provenance irregularities. It also presents an initial collation of available images and mapped locations of the Egyptian finds as part of a comprehensive catalog of nalbound objects prior to 1600 currently being compiled.

""Prestigegüter entlang der Seidenstraße? first and foremost aims to assess exquisite objects of art – Chinese silks in various weaving patterns, Chinese lacquer objects, Chinese bronze mirrors and Persian (Sassanian) glassware – and their social function(s) within the ancient cultures of the Taklamakan Desert. It is a comprehensive analysis of the archaeological findings and features unearthed at several cemeteries dating roughly from the 2nd through 5th centuries CE that are located along the so-called “Southern Route” of the Chinese part of the Silk Road. In Chinese and in Western sources, these burial sites are (very well) known under the names of Yingpan 營盤, Loulan 樓蘭, Zhagunluke (Cherchen) 札滾魯克, and Niya 尼雅. The respective tombs yielded copious amounts of indigenous and imported artifacts as well as a large number of well-preserved mummies, most notably the famous ‘Yingpan Man’ sporting a mustachioed death mask. Thus, at the core of the book lays an extensively annotated compilation of burial assemblages that combines all available data collected from eighty eligible graves. The resulting database – it amounts to more than 300 pages excluding figures and tables – not only offers a comprehensive overview of all findings, but also delivers a detailed description of every known object from every single grave for the first time in a Western language.

It is often proposed that a considerable number of the Chinese commodities retrieved from these burials once were reciprocal gifts from Chinese rulers and thus an essential part of the so-called “tributary system.” Prestigegüter entlang der Seidenstraße? also aims to clarify the nature of the relationships between Chinese dynasties and the city-states of the Tarim Basin, which are usually neglected in favor of more powerful “barbarians” such as the Xiongnu. In order to do so, it was necessary to evaluate the respective information offered by Chinese historiographical sources (Hanshu 漢書, Hou hanshu 後漢書, Sanguozhi 三國志, Jinshu 晉書). The comparison of (more than forty) tribute missions from the Tarim Basin statelets to various Chinese courts with putative counter gifts over the course of roughly four hundred years clearly demonstrated that different mechanisms were at play. In none of the altogether four (!) instances any of the history books record imperial presents were these gift occasioned by the acceptance of tribute. By delivering tribute, the foreigners actually sought to secure amicable relations; they did not abuse tribute relations as “a cloak for trade.”

The archaeological sources, in general, mirror this impression. Even though one might consider a present from the hands of a Chinese emperor the ultimate prestige good, there are no indications that one of the buried individuals was in the possession of an immediate imperial gift. Although a considerable number of tomb occupants were equipped with artifacts produced somewhere in mainland China, the relics were hardly ever crafted in imperial workshops. That is to say with the exception of polychrome figured silks in warp-faced compound tabby weave (generally known as jin 錦 silks). These textiles are often adorned by auspicious inscriptions that occasionally propagate political agendas. But even such precious fabrics should be regarded as traded commodities rather than presents. This view is not only supported by the fact that in most cases relatively small fragments of many different weaving patterns were used, but also that some jin samples provide us with ink inscriptions in Chinese and the Kharosthi script that explicitly refer to the price of the textile.

But then, what exactly could be regarded a manifestation of an immensely complex social phenomenon such as prestige in archaeological data? At first glance, the collected evidence suggests that all imported Chinese objects must have been expensive; an observation that does not necessarily imply that all social actors considered them prestigious. The fact that some individuals produced or acquired imitations Chinese artifacts clearly indicates that they somehow admired the originals but, for various reasons, were unable to get hold of such items. Physical expressions of emulation, i.e. copies or imitations, certainly show that originals generated prestige, at least among a certain social group of admirers. More specifically, some Tarim Basin burials indeed provide us with proof that Western Asian weavers emulated Chinese jin silks. In their attempts to transform the latter’s principal decorative motifs into the typical Western Asian weaving technique known as taqueté, i.e. weft-faced compound tabby weaves, artisans even tried to copy – very crudely and unsuccessfully, I might add – Chinese script.""

Numerous Bronze Age cemeteries in the oases surrounding the Täklamakan Desert of the Tarim Basin in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, western China, have yielded both mummified and skeletal human remains. A dearth of local antecedents, coupled with woolen textiles and the apparent Western physical appearance of the population, raised questions as to where these people came from. Two hypotheses have been offered by archaeologists to account for the origins of Bronze Age populations of the Tarim Basin. These are the “steppe hypothesis” and the “Bactrian oasis hypothesis.” Eight craniometric variables from 25 Aeneolithic and Bronze Age samples, comprising 1,353 adults from the Tarim Basin, the Russo-Kazakh steppe, southern China, Central Asia, Iran, and the Indus Valley, are compared to test which, if either, of these hypotheses are supported by the pattern of phenetic affinities possessed by Bronze Age inhabitants of the Tarim Basin. Craniometric differences between samples are compared with Mahalanobis generalized distance (d2), and patterns of phenetic affinity are assessed with two types of cluster analysis (the weighted pair average linkage method and the neighbor-joining method), multidimensional scaling, and principal coordinates analysis. Results obtained by this analysis provide little support for either the steppe hypothesis or the Bactrian oasis hypothesis. Rather, the pattern of phenetic affinities manifested by Bronze Age inhabitants of the Tarim Basin suggests the presence of a population of unknown origin within the Tarim Basin during the early Bronze Age. After 1200 B.C., this population experienced significant gene flow from highland populations of the Pamirs and Ferghana Valley. These highland populations may include those who later became known as the Saka and who may have served as “middlemen” facilitating contacts between East (Tarim Basin, China) and West (Bactria, Uzbekistan) along what later became known as the Great Silk Road. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2003. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

once remarked with reference to the concessions to Parliament made by Charles I. " If," he said, " these had been related nakedly, without any detail of the circumstances which generally led to them, they would not have been believed." Keeping This in Mind, I have chosen to Gather together the Fruit of Countless Scholars and attempt to place them in Sequence, to trace the Origins of the Khattars in an Orderly manner. Some back and Forth Narrative will be occasioned, for which my apologies with a request for patient perusal. To Recall The Closing of Tocharian-Yueczi-Khattar Horse Tribes Volume 1. "There is evidence of Large-Scale Migration of Steppe Tribes towards the more conducive Environment of the Forested Areas of Europe. Large Tribal Groups accompanied with huge flocks of Domestic Animals and spearheaded by Battle-Axe Wielding Warriors, enjoyed relative superiority over the indigenous European Populations regarding mobile food supply and Battle tactics. This led to dominance of the Newcomers in relations to Languages and Culture. Other, related tribes either remained in place or moved towards the East as far as the Altai Mountains, sharing the area with other tribes, speaking different tongues and having different Cultures. Ths showed that the Speakers of Indo-European Languages had evolved a highly advanced Nomadic Mode of Existence." Early Eastwards Migration Route of Proto-Indo-European Tribes: There is a need to clarify some Terms and Concepts that we will be dealing with. Satem: Languages of the Indo-European Family are classified as either Centum Languages or Satem Languages according to how the dorsal consonants (sounds of "K" and "G" type) of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European Language (PIE) developed. An example of the different developments is provided by the words for "hundred" found in the early attested Indo-European Languages (which is where the two branches get their names). In Centum Languages, they typically began with a /k/ sound (Latin

Семененко А.А. Взаимосвязи культуры таримских мумий бронзового века, цивилизации Зрелой Хараппы, Ригведы (РВ) и Атхарваведы Шаунакии (АВШ)
Доклад на расширенном заседании научного круглого стола "Проблемы археологии и истории Ближнего Востока" в Воронежском государственном педагогическом университете 15.05.2017 г.

In this chapter, through descriptions of the Xiaohe cemetery, related Silk Road archaeological sites, and the mummies discovered therein, we have reviewed the present situation of research on the Bronze Age cultures left by ancient Indo-Europeans who drifted into northwestern China as early as 2000–1500 BCE. The mummies and the early Bronze Age artifacts associated with them found in the Xinjiang area have been investigated in the last century, but professional analyses based on substantive evidence has been limited. But because of archaeological information that has recently emerged from the Xinjiang Silk Road reinvestigation, the significance of the mummies has been validated anew. The Xinjiang mummies currently maintained in the local museums have significance in two aspects: their contribution to the history of Silk Road researches and to mummy studies worldwide. Especially for the latter, the mummies and their culture could provide invaluable information about the first demic diffusion of Indo-Europeans to the east in the prehistoric era. The Xinjiang mummies are also significant because of their superb preservation, even after the lapse of several millennia. As is well-known, naturally mummified examples provide the best research subjects for scientific analysis for revealing the life and health status of ancient peoples. Since the mummies are very rare cases that have been preserved in the remote periphery of China during ancient times, sensitive and detailed scientific studies on them in the future could provide wonderful data to archaeologists, anthropologists, and paleopathologists worldwide.

Семененко А.А. Таримский след исхода индоевропейцев из Индии // Власть и общество:
механизмы взаимодействия и противоречия: Материалы Восьмой региональной научной
конференции (г. Воронеж, 3 февраля 2014 г.) / Под общ. ред. В.Н.Глазьева. — Воронеж:
издательство "Истоки", 2014. — С. 290—294

As the world&#39;s second largest sand sea and one of the most important dust sources to the global aerosol system, the formation of the Taklimakan Desert marks a major environmental event in central Asia during the Cenozoic. Determining when and how the desert formed holds the key to better understanding the tectonic-climatic linkage in this critical region. However, the age of the Taklimakan remains controversial, with the dominant view being from ∼3.4 Ma to ∼7 Ma based on magnetostratigraphy of sedimentary sequences within and along the margins of the desert. In this study, we applied radioisotopic methods to precisely date a volcanic tuff preserved in the stratigraphy. We constrained the initial desertification to be late Oligocene to early Miocene, between ∼26.7 Ma and 22.6 Ma. We suggest that the Taklimakan Desert was formed as a response to a combination of widespread regional aridification and increased erosion in the surrounding mountain fronts, both of which are closely li...

Excessive withdrawal of water for farmland irrigation, and water losses from water reservoirs and channels, have caused water deficit problems along the Tarim River in Northwestern China. Especially, the lower reaches have been severely threatened since the 1950s, and are experiencing a drastic increase in the mineralisation of the river water. Additionally, large scale deposition of aeolian sand and dust is another major threat for the Tarim Riparian Ecosystem (TaRiEc). This development reached its "climax" with the desiccation of the Taitema Lake in 1972, and the "climax" was well expressed by severe degradation of the TaRiEc, which is in turn predominately characterized by the dying of Populus euphratica stands. All these developments led to the initiation of the "Ecological Water Diversion Project" (EWDP). The main objective of this project is to ensure a constant water supply to the lower reaches of the Tarim River via the water transfer both from the Bosten Lake catchment and from Tarim's upper and middle reaches. In this study, the processes and trends of the vegetation change during this period of intermittent water transfer were examined on the basis of remote sensing data. The results show that with the water transfer only some of the P. euphratica trees reached a more vital state. Common hypotheses about factors influencing the tree vitality under stressful conditions deal with the water level in the river, the groundwater level and the distance of the trees from the river. However, soil and sediment, as well as micro-relief conditions also play an important role and take influence on the vitality of the trees. The main objective of the present study was to analyse the features of soil and sediment concerning water passage and water storage processes in near surface and subsurface positions of the lower Tarim Riparian Ecosystem. For that purpose, 2010 and 2011 field and laboratory analyses of soil and sediment profiles were performed. Laboratory results comprise grain size measurements, pore size distribution, total organic content (TOC) and data from XRD-measurements on the soil's mineral composition for all studied sites within the lower Tarim study area and for selected ecosystem types as well. These parameters allow conclusions about water storage and water passage conditions, which play a key role for water availability and water supply of P. euphratica trees. Besides single soil and sediment parameters, such as salt content and mineral composition, layer types (vertical sequence of soil horizons and sediment layers) have been identified as leading factors determining near surface and subsurface water passage and water storage features of the Tarim Riparian Ecosystem.

Toponyms and hydronyms encode important information about human perceptions of the environment in a specific context. This article discusses the Loptuq, a group of Turkic-speakers, who until the 1950s lived as fishers-foragers at the Lower Tarim River, Eastern Turkestan (contemporary Xinjiang, China), and their use of common reed (Phragmites australis) as an example for the close connection between language, culture, social relations, economic activities, and human perceptions about the surrounding environment. Operating in lakes and swamps for their economic activities (fishing, hunting, foraging, and occasional transport), exploring and observing vegetation and animal life, the Loptuq developed and transmitted information through naming their habitat. Today both their habitat and the earlier knowledge have disappeared, but the perceptions and uses of resources can at least partly be reconstructed through foreign explorers’ narratives and field notes

Ulaştırma Bakanlığı Altyapı Yatırımları Genel Müdürlüğü CİMER üzerinden iletilen dilekçelere cevap vermeye başladı. Söz konusu cevapta,“İstanbul Boğazındaki keskin dönüşler, sert akıntılar, şehir içi
deniz trafiği olmasından dolayı Boğaz kenarındaki yapıların, kültürel mirasın ve insanların can ve mal güvenliğinin sağlanması amacı ile Kanal İstanbul Projesi gerçekleştirilmektedir. Ayrıca Boğazdaki beklemelerin ve trafiğin rahatlamasını sağlayacak Kanal İstanbul Projesi ile gemilerin
bekleme sürelerindeki maliyet kayıplarını Boğaza göre seyir emniyeti daha yüksek olacak Kanaldan geçerek telafi etmelerine imkân sağlamış olacaktır. 200’e yakın uzmanın çalıştığı Türkiye’nin önde gelen üniversitelerinden destek alındığı, Dünyanın en gelişmiş laboratuvarlarında simülasyonların yapıldığı ve tüm teknik çalışmaların en ince ayrıntısına kadar düşünüldüğü bu projeye karşı çıkmanızın bilimsel nedeni anlaşılamamıştır” denildi.