Unsolved mystery: Discovering Uttarakhand’s Skeleton Lake

Roopkund Lake is 16,500 feet above sea level at the bottom of steep, bowl shaped slopes on Trisul, one of India's highest mountains, in the state of Uttarakhand. It has a breath taking aerial view, and trekkers enjoy taking the challenge of reaching its ice cold waters.  

But when the water shrinks in the dry months before monsoon, a macabre site comes to view straight out of horror movies. Embedded in the muddy bed of the lake lie skeletal remains of 600 to 800 people!  

Who first noticed the skeletons of Roopkund?  
Hardly anyone lives in the ultra-cold and barren landscape. And locals would not have been interested in the lake unless there was water in it. But in 1942, a British forest ranger, patrolling in that region noticed something strange about the exposed bed of the lake. On closer view, he was terrified to see skeletons sticking out of the soil. Since then, scientists and historians have been trying to figure out who died there and how. Meanwhile Roopkund has become known as the Skeleton Lake.   

Whose skeletons lie at the bottom of Roopkund?  
Here are some of the theories around the skeletons:  

• One theory suggests these are the remains of an Indian king, his wife and their attendants, all of whom perished in a blizzard some 870 years ago while trying to cross the lake 
• Another suggests these are Indian soldiers who tried to invade Tibet in 1841, but lost and were forced to retreat. But the problem of the theory is that there were supposed to be 70 soldiers, not 600 or 800  
• Locals say it’s a cemetery for epidemic victims. They say Goddess Nanda Devi (a high peak in that region), created a hail storm to kill people going by that lake, burying them under the icy pile   
• The latest five-year-long study involving 28 co-authors from 16 institutions based in India, US and Germany, have found all the above may be false. The scientists genetically analysed and carbon-dated the remains of 38 bodies, including 15 women, to find they were 1,200 years old! More interestingly, the dead were of diverse races, people from South Asia, Europe, and even the Greek island of Crete 

Perhaps these people were separate groups who died at various times. There are no weapons or trade goods / objects, nor any killer bacteria in that region. Skeleton Lake is yet to reveal its mystery to us.