The Zaghunluq cemetery, three kilometres from Cherchen town, is the source of the most famous of the Tarim mummies — Bronze Age burials dating back 3,000 to 3,500 years, preserved almost perfectly by the extreme aridity of the desert margin. The bodies were found with western physical features, light-coloured hair, and sophisticated woollen textiles, raising questions about the early movement of people through Central Asia that continue to generate debate among archaeologists and geneticists.
The mummies themselves — including the celebrated Cherchen Man, the Cherchen Woman, and three infants — were removed to the Xinjiang Regional Museum in Ürümqi, where they are displayed in a dedicated hall. The cemetery site itself is not developed for visitors and has limited interpretive materials, but the location — a flat gravel plain at the desert's edge — gives a sense of the conditions in which the ancient population lived and was buried. The Toghraklek Manor museum in town provides the closest thing to an on-site introduction to the finds.