This boundless land seems to be created to give birth to legends. Bottomless blue sky, endless dry steppe, waves of pale waddle and wind walking in all directions.
Mongolia. A land of open spaces where the sky merges with the earth. A country with the lowest population density in the world. A country that is 7 times the size of the UK but has only 2% of the UK’s roads. And why would Mongolia need roads when everywhere you look there is hard dry steppe and endless expanses of stunted grass…?
Mongolian steppe/ © epuzzle.info
Empire
But this is the country of Genghis Khan, the great general who conquered the world on horseback. His history is full of records and his life is full of amazing events. In the thirteenth century, he created the largest empire in world history, which stretched from the shores of the Pacific Ocean in the east to the gray Caspian Sea in the west. His countless armies, his famous cavalry so feared in Europe, sowed death and destruction wherever they appeared. Genghis Khan is one of the world’s most colorful and ruthless rulers, who redrew all its borders with a firm hand.
But this is all history and facts. And here legends begin with the death of the great commander. It is not known how Genghis Khan died — whether he fell from a horse, or from old age (he was about 65 years old — a solid age for the XIII century), or caught the plague. And after his death his faithful and loyal companions buried the leader. Only where they did it, where is the tomb of the commander? The answer to this question for 800 years could not give a single person on Earth.
Let’s try to systematize a little legends about Genghis Khan’s burial and facts about the search for his tomb to answer the question — why at the current level of development of science and technology, his tomb is still a mystery behind seven seals?
Legends
Image of Genghis Khan in the Yuan Dynasty, XIV century/ © theme.npm.edu.tw
There is no consensus on how the great warlord was buried. All assumptions are based one way or another on oral tales that have been passed down from generation to generation. On them it is possible to allocate three basic versions:
1 Dying, Genghis Khan ordered that he be buried in a special secret place. Mourning warriors accurately fulfilled the leader’s will. When they traveled with Genghis Khan’s body, they killed every person they met on their way so that not a single witness remained. They also killed the builders of the tomb, and those warriors who took their lives. And after the ritual, the survivors let a 10,000-strong herd of horses run along the burial site so that not the slightest trace of the tomb remained;
2 Genghis Khan ordered himself to be buried near Mount Burkhan-Khaldun, the place where he was born and which was considered sacred long before his birth. In his youth he hid there from his enemies and vowed to return there after his death;
3 The commander was buried in the bed of the Selenga River, which flows through Mongolia, enters Buryatia and flows into Lake Baikal. For this purpose the upper reaches of Selenga were blocked by a dam, changing its bed. And when the tomb was built on the former bottom, the dam was destroyed and the river flowed along the former path, forever covering the tomb with its waters.
Facts
The search for the burial place of the great commander began almost immediately after his death. Motives, of course, were self-serving. According to legend, the tomb contained untold treasures that could make rich not only the man himself, but also 10 generations of his descendants.
Monument to Genghis Khan, Mongolia/ © wikiway.com
But the search became relatively systematic only in the early XX century. French archaeologists went to Mongolia (and it was still part of the Qing Empire at that time) with only one guess. But their excavations stopped rather quickly, for they ran out of money and means. Among the artifacts found there was nothing that even remotely indicated the possible location of the tomb.
And in 1911 the independent Mongolian state appeared, which with the support of the Soviet Union in 1924 finally declared its liberation from Chinese oppression. And this long friendship with the USSR prevented serious archaeological excavations. The Soviet authorities did not encourage research into the Genghis Khan era, probably so that the ruler would not become a symbol of the Mongol people’s liberation struggle.
In 60th years the only joint Soviet-Mongolian-German archaeological expedition in the area of sacred mountain Burkhan-Khaldun was carried out. Scientists found many shards, bricks, arrowheads. And at the top they found hundreds of stone mounds, from which they extracted parts of iron armor. But the main thing was missing — human remains.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the first archaeologists to set foot on Mongolian soil to search for Genghis Khan’s grave were the Japanese. The helicopter landing of scientists to the top of the mountain, which was publicized and made a lot of noise, ended in a pish — the results of excavations were zero.
In the very early 2000s there was another full-fledged expedition, already under the leadership of Americans, which conducted excavations in the vicinity of the mountain. They found the burial of a soldier of the X century and that was the end of it.
Monument to the warlord by Buryat sculptor Dashi Namdakov/ © ukranews.com
Ban
And after that no more excavations were carried out on the territory of Mongolia. The country’s authorities banned any archaeological activities related to digging. Explore with instruments to your heart’s content, but not a single stone should be disturbed on the sacred mountain Burkhan-Khaldun.
What is the reason for such a total ban? The fact is that Genghis Khan for the Mongols is not just a man who conquered half the world. He is for them a hero, the father of the nation and a symbol of the country’s independence. Genghisomania in Mongolia began from the time of its real independence, which came with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The international airport is named after Genghis Khan. Streets, hotels, monuments, factories, universities, consumer brands — everything is branded with Genghis Khan’s name.
He is still treated with great respect in Mongolia, so neither ordinary people nor the authorities want the grave of their great countryman to be discovered and disturbed. The area of the sacred mountain Burhan-Khaldun is now a strictly protected reserve, which is a UNESCO cultural heritage site. Not only to dig there, it is not allowed to be there.
That is why any scientific search for the tomb of the great commander can be conducted in Mongolia only by theoretical methods or with the use of special equipment.
Attempts
And this monument is installed in the center of the Mongolian capital/ © flickr.com
And archeologists do so. They do not give up — for example, there is a volunteer project in the world, the participants of which carefully study satellite images of the sacred mountain and data that were obtained as a result of flying over it by drones. People are trying to identify structures or unusual formations that are invisible to a simple glance.
There are also practical studies with radar and magnetometers. They even have some success — recently at the foot of Burkhan-Khaldun was found the foundation of a large structure, and nearby arrowheads and the remains of pottery and bricks. The radiocarbon analysis showed that all these artifacts «originated» from the XIII century, which threw archaeologists into a thrill. Negotiations with the Mongolian authorities for more detailed excavations are slow but underway.
The sacred mountain Burkhan-Khaldun/ © tury.club
But this is, in fact, only the research of one of the legends, according to which Genghis Khan was buried in the foothills of the sacred mountain (or on it). But what about the other two versions? And here it is a dead end, as it is technically impossible to explore the bottom of active rivers in search of a burial, and to search for a tomb in the bare Mongolian steppe is like finding a needle in a haystack — a lot of effort, the result is not guaranteed.
Of course, we want to be optimistic and believe that sooner or later the tomb of the great and terrible Genghis Khan will be discovered. But, on the other hand, is it necessary? Maybe we should listen to the Mongols and not try to disturb the ashes of our ancestors? Let them remain in our memory covered with legends of their deeds: terrible, noble, great — it does not matter. But let it be legends, let it be chronicles, not dried up remains in ruined tombs.