Free Republic

Gengis Khan basecamp found in China Chinese scholars have found a series of ancient wells they believe provided water for Genghis Khan's legendary hordes during their campaign in Western Xia. The find led them to conclude Genghis Khan did indeed march through the city of Ordos on his expedition into Western Xia. China's Xinhua news service said Monday more than 80 wells spaced 10 meters (33 feet) apart that were apparently used by the expedition's thousands of soldiers and horses. The wells are believed to be part of the "100 Wells" cited in the ancient classic history, "The Untold Story...

Mural of Genghis Khan's funeral found Dec. 26, 2006 at 12:09PM A painting of a Mongolian funeral ceremony in the Arjai caves in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region might depict Genghis Khan's funeral. The mural in one of the caves at the Arjai Grotto is about 20 inches long and 14 inches wide, the Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday. The painting depicts a Mongolian funeral where a man is held above a funeral pit by white cranes, said Pan Zhaodong, a researcher from the Social Science Academy of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. One well-dressed onlooker could very well...

Celebrating Genghis Khan's Big Year September 29, 2006 by Eric Powell Eight centuries on, the Mongolian conqueror continues to influence culture worldwide. Mongolians love their Khan. Before I traveled to Mongolia last year to report a story on Bronze Age nomads, I'd read about the country's devotion to a man known throughout the rest of the world as the most ruthless and bloodthirsty conqueror in the planet's history. But I was still surprised by the ubiquity of his presence in the capital city Ulaanbaatar (sometimes spelled Ulan Bator, or "Red Hero" in Mongolian). Not only is his visage (sometimes benevolent,...

He's one of the most famous names of the last millennium, and he's the father of his country, which turns 800 years old this year. That's why the D.C. region's Mongolian community would like to see a statue erected of Genghis Khan, the George Washington of Mongolia.

"Genghis Khan introduced papermaking and printing technologies to Europe and pioneered cultural exchanges between Asia and Europe," it quoted Zhu Yaoting, a specialist on Mongolian history at Beijing Union University, as saying. "He brought cultural progress that helped liberate the Europeans from the bondage of theology -- in this sense, his expeditions served as a catalyst for the Renaissance," he said. Genghis Khan's expeditions to Europe also reopened the Silk Road and laid the path for Marco Polo's historic trip to China. "The expedition revived the ancient trade link and made economic and cultural exchanges possible again between the isolated...

A US accountant has proof that he is descended from the Mongol warlordTHEY seem the unlikeliest of relatives. One was a fearsome warlord whose name became a byword for savagery. The other is a mild-mannered accountancy academic from Florida. Yet Tom Robinson, 48, has become the first man outside Asia to trace his ancestry directly to Genghis Khan, the 13th-century Mongol leader whose empire stretched from the South China Sea to the Persian Gulf. And, since his paternal great-great-grandfather emigrated to the United States from Windermere, Cumbria, many more descendants are probably scattered across the Lake District. Genetic tests have...

DESCENDANTS of Genghis Khan, the man who conquered half the world in the 13th century, rolled out the red carpet yesterday for the most powerful man of the 21st century. George Bush stood to attention in the biting cold before an honour guard of Mongolian soldiers in blue and red uniforms and with sabres at the ready as the United States national anthem played to welcome the first serving American President to set foot in Ulan Bator. Mr Bush chose to wrap up a four-nation Asian trip in this young democracy, where fewer than three million people, mostly nomads, live...

Published online: 24 October 2005Charlotte SchubertY chromosomes reveal founding fatherDid conquest and concubines spread one man's genes across Asia? The Manchu warriors took control of China in 1644. © Punchstock About 1.5 million men in northern China and Mongolia may be descended from a single man, according to a study based on Y chromosome genetics1. Historical records suggest that this man may be Giocangga, who lived in the mid-1500s and whose grandson founded the Qing dynasty, which ruled China from 1644 to 1912. The analysis is similar to a controversial study in 2003, which suggested that approximately 16 million men...

Has Genghis' Tomb Been Found? After four years' work, a joint team of Japanese and Mongolian archaeologists announced on October 4 that they had found what they believe to be the true mausoleum of Genghis Khan (1162-1227). The ruins, dated to between the 13th and 15th century, were found at Avraga, around 250 kilometers east of Ulan Bator, the capital of the People's Republic of Mongolia. Team members said that they expect the discovery to provide clues to the whereabouts of the khan's actual burial site, which they believe may be within 12 kilometers of the mausoleum. There is a...

Genghis Khan's pen as mighty as his sword? August 23 2004 at 11:45AM Beijing - A Chinese historian says he has evidence that ruthless conqueror and master of the Mongol horde Genghis Khan was as masterful with the pen as he was with the sword. Historians have long assumed the ancient Mongolian ruler was illiterate, primarily because the Mongolian written language was created in the early 13th century, when Genghis Khan would have been in his 40s and not have had time to learn, the official Xinhua news agency said. However, Tengus Bayaryn, a professor at China's Inner Mongolia University,...

A London restaurant chain is offering customers free DNA testing to see if they're descended from Genghis Khan. Restaurant Shish has promised free meals for any found to be related to the notorious Mongol leader. The unusual promotion is to mark the Mongolian government's decision to allow citizens to have surnames for the first time since they were banned by the communists in the 1920s. Some 50,000 Mongolians now proudly claim direct descent from and bear the name of Genghis Khan. Shish has teamed up with DNA-based research company Oxford Ancestors to offer descendants food from their ancestral homelands. From...

Genghis Khan: Father to Millions? By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery Newshttp://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20040621/gallery/genghis_goto.jpg> Statue of the Mongol Emperor June 22, 2004 —Genghis Khan left a legacy shared by 16 million people alive today, according to a book by a Oxford geneticist who identified the Mongol emperor as the most successful alpha male in human history. Regarded by the Mongolians as the father of their nation, Genghis Khan was born around 1162. A military and political genius, he united the tribes of Mongolia and conquered half of the known world with a cavalry riding on grass-fed ponies. By the time Genghis died in 1227,...

Genghis Khan was perhaps the most successful warrior the world has ever known. During the 13th century, he conquered most of civilization with an army of fewer than 100,000 Mongol horsemen. According to Genghis' biographer, Jack Weatherford, the warlord's philosophy went this way: "Warfare was not a sporting contest or a mere match between rivals; it was a total commitment of one people against another. Victory did not come to the one who played by the rules; it came to one who made the rules and imposed them on his enemy." Osama Bin Laden is unquestionably one of history's greatest...

By H.D.S. Greenway, 10/24/2003 UNTIL THE TYRANTS of the 20th century came along, they were the most efficient, cold-blooded, feared, and destructive conquerors the world had ever known. They were the Mongol horsemen from the steppes of Central Asia, whose hordes under the leadership of Genghis Khan built a 13th-century empire by mass slaughter -- burning cities and terrifying half a dozen civilizations from Russia to the East China Sea. Genghis Khan's grandson, Hulagu, leveled Baghdad, and Iraqis have invoked his name ever since to brand their enemies, including the Americans. It is said that you could smell their stench...

After years of suppression by Mongolia's former communist rulers, the great Mongol warlord Ghengis Khan is back at the top of the national agenda, almost 800 years after his death. His wizened image appears on everything from vodka bottles to money. Much of Genghis Khan's life remains a mystery Scientists too are rediscovering Ghengis' history. The American-funded Ghengis Khan Geo-Historical expedition has spent three years exploring sites associated with the kahn's life. Yet one mystery remains, the site of his burial. John Woods of the University of Chicago is the expedition's team leader, and he thinks it might be at...

February 11, 2003 A Prolific Genghis Khan, It Seems, Helped People the WorldBy NICHOLAS WADE remarkable living legacy of the Mongol empire has been discovered by geneticists in a survey of human populations from the Caucasus to China. They find that as many as 8 percent of the men dwelling in the confines of the former Mongol empire bear Y chromosomes that seem characteristic of the Mongol ruling house. If so, some 16 million men, or half a percent of the world's male population, can probably claim descent from Genghis Khan. The finding seems to be the first proof, on...

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- A new population genetics study may have identified history's greatest lover, at least as measured in millions of descendants in his direct male line. This mighty progenitor was not a celebrated expert in the amorous arts like Casanova. Instead -- and this might say something about human nature that we'd rather not know -- he owed his lineage's staggering reproductive success to his being perhaps history's greatest fighter. The 23 co-authors of a paper published electronically by the American Journal of Human Genetics examined the Y-chromosomes of 2,123 men from across Asia. The Y...

During excavations conducted in conjunction with the restoration of the Tver State Museum in western Russia, archaeologists discovered a medieval silver hoard lying just six feet below the office of the museum's general director. Buried in a small hole covered with ceramics sometime during the Mongol invasions of the mid-thirteenth century, the hoard contained silver headdresses, chains, beads, and pendants, among other items. According to RU Facts, archaeologists believe the jewelry may have belonged to a Tver noblewoman who died in the assault on the city or was otherwise unable to retrieve her precious cache. The hoard narrowly missed being...

Amazon Warrior WomenThis painting on a Greek vase depicts an Amazon woman warrior on horseback engaged in battle.Amazons in myth: History's first mention of a race of warrior women comes in Homer's ILIAD, an account of the Trojan War, probably written in the 8th to the 7th century B.C. Homer's Amazons, a race of fierce women who mated with vanquished male foes and kept only the female children they bore, were believed to occupy the area around the Black Sea. Amazon women also crop up in other Greek myths. One of the labors of Hercules, for example, required him to...

Humanity’s greatest land empire was made possible by non-human climate change. Many phenomena, real and imagined, have been attributed to global warming. From rising ocean levels to increased agricultural yields to tornadoes to polar vortices to droughts to rapes to car thefts, global warming now stands as the cause of just about anything. And because of current political dogma, man is ultimately blamed for all these evils (and occasional goods). Now a recent study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences argues that there is a correlation between increasing global temperatures and the rise of the Mongolian empire. According...