section_path: Legacy/Exhumation and alleged curse
section_name: Exhumation and alleged curse
paragraph_text: Exhumation and alleged curse
  
  Timur's body was exhumed from his tomb on 19 June 1941 and his remains examined by the Soviet anthropologists Mikhail M. Gerasimov, Lev V. Oshanin and V. Ia. Zezenkova. Gerasimov reconstructed the likeness of Timur from his skull and found that his facial characteristics displayed "typical Mongoloid features", i.e. East Asian in modern terms. An anthropologic study of Timur's cranium shows that he belonged predominately to the "South Siberian Mongoloid type". At 5 feet 8 inches (173 centimeters), Timur was tall for his era. The examinations confirmed that Timur was lame and had a withered right arm due to his injuries. His right thighbone had knitted together with his kneecap, and the configuration of the knee joint suggests that he kept his leg bent at all times and therefore would have had a pronounced limp. He appears to have been broad-chested and his hair and beard were red.
  
  It is alleged that Timur's tomb was inscribed with the words, "When I rise from the dead, the world shall tremble". It is also said that when Gerasimov exhumed the body, an additional inscription inside the casket was found, which read, "Whomsoever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I." Even though people close to Gerasimov claim that this story is a fabrication, the legend, which became known as the Curse of Timur, persists. In any case, three days after Gerasimov began the exhumation, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Timur was re-buried with full Islamic ritual in November 1942 just before the Soviet victory at the Battle of Stalingrad.