The Noin-Ula burial site was first discovered in the spring of 1913 by Andrei Ballod, a Russian geologist doing survey work for a new gold-mining company.

[3] After a colleague, Sergei Kondratiev, confirmed that the find was a major discovery, Kozlov changed his plans and eventually excavated eight mounds at the Noin-Ula site.

[3] As with some finds of the Pazyryk culture, the Noin Ula graves had been flooded and subsequently frozen, thus preserving the organic material to a remarkable degree.

However, the robbers left Xiongnu weaponry, home utensils, and art objects, and Chinese artifacts of bronze, nephrite, lacquered wood and textiles.

His horse trappings were elaborately decorated and his leather-covered saddle was threaded with black and red wool clipped to resemble velvet.

Wuzhuliu was buried in 13 CE, a date established from the inscription on a cup given to him by the Chinese Emperor during a reception in the Shanlin park near Chang'an in 1 BCE.

A surviving portrait shows a low nose bridge, eyes with epicanthic fold, long wavy hair, divided in the middle, and a braid visibly tied and falling from the tip of the head over the right ear.

Gumilev concluded that among the Xiongnu of the 1st century BC, a far-eastern ideal of beauty overcame the traditional western model, which continued in the art of the Scythian "animal" style.

The study describes highly diagnostic traits with a very rare combination found in certain ancient and modern populations of the Caspian–Aral region and in the northern Indus–Ganges interfluve.