Some of the modern-day residents of Zhelaizhai, now known as Liqian village,[1] have been suspected to be descendants of a group of Roman soldiers that were never accounted for after being captured in the Battle of Carrhae.

[3][4][5][6] Zhelaizhai received much attention from international media and researchers due to a hypothesis which states that its inhabitants may have descended from the Romans.

The population has higher frequencies of traits prevalent in Europe, such as aquiline noses, blonde or light-colored hair, blue or green eyes, and relatively fair skin tones.

In the 1940s, Homer H. Dubs, a professor of Chinese history at the University of Oxford, suggested that the people of Liqian were descended from Roman legionaries taken prisoner at the Battle of Carrhae.

A geography book of the eastern Han Dynasty records that "Local people call the ancestors of the Roman prisoners-of-war Lijian", a Chinese term for being of Greco-Roman origin.