Visiting the ruins of Kararkorum

July 27, Kharakorum (now known as Kharkhorin)

Oh boy, what a day! I got to see the third of my three “dream” sites relating to the Mongol Empire: Kharakorum, the capital of the Mongol Empire during the mid-13^th century. Chinggis Khaan’s son, Ogodei, who succeeded him as Great Khaan, built a palace there, surrounded by a huge thick wall, to be the capital of the Mongol Empire. It was the first fixed building in Mongolia, since all Mongols lived in tents before that. Three Great Khaans ruled from Kharakorum before Khublai Khaan moved the capital to the city we now call Beijing.

Not much is left of the palace and city of Kharakorum – I knew that before I came. But German and Mongolian archeologists spent five years digging there, and came up with many artifacts, some of which are in museums. They uncovered the stone foundations of the pillars that held up the palace, and we stood on those foundations. There are still many fragments of glazed tiles from the roofs and pillars of the palaces. We took a few small ones. After digging for five years, they covered the site with dirt again, to preserve whatever else they found. I’d like to read up more about what they found. The biggest two items from Kharakorum are both stone turtles, and we saw both. One is at the site, and the other is on top of a hill.

In our ger camp, there is a miniature reconstruction of the city of Kharakorum, which gives some idea of what it looked like. The best description of it was in a report written by William of Rubruck, a Franciscan friar sent by King Louis of France in 1250 who managed to get all the way to the Mongol capital and came back and wrote a report about his journey. He described the palace and the court. One of his most vivid descriptions was of a silver wine fountain designed by a Frenchman. It had an angel at the top, blowing a horn, and four spouts coming out of the mouths of dragons, and four more spouts from a silver tree below, pouring out Mongolian airag (fermented mare’s milk) and other types of wine. We saw two reconstructions of this silver wine fountain.

Most of the bricks and tiles used in the palace and walls of Kharakorum were used to build a Buddhist monastery in the 16^th century, called Erdene Zuu. Its walls are 400 meters long, about one-tenth the length of the walls of Kharakorum. Along its outside walls are 108 white stupas – a stunning sight from a distance. We saw it from several overlooks above the city. Inside, there used to be 40 temples with at most 150 lama monks, but most of the temples were destroyed by the Communists in 1937. Today, it is once again a working monastery, with 40 monks. Only 14 temples remain.

The three most prominent of the temples are richly decorated, with statues of Buddhas and elaborate banners and wall paintings. They have also set up a school for training young monks, and we visited it while the monks were chanting the sutras in Tibetan. Jeanne and I put one of our blue khadag scarves on one of the fierce guardian statues that is said to protect the monastery. I hope it helps!