Zwischen 616 und 1180 meißelten buddhistische Mönche des rund 75 km südwestlich von Beijing gelegenen Wolkenheimklosters buddhistische Sutren in Stein, um die heiligen Schriften vor dem erwarteten Weltende zu retten. Am Ende dieses wahrscheinlich größten epigraphischen Projektes der Weltgeschichte waren rund 1.600 Texte auf 15.000 Platten mit insgesamt etwa 31 Millionen Schriftzeichen fertiggestellt.
Die für das Steininschriftenprojekt wohl bedeutendste Phase war die Zeit der Liao-Dynastie (907-1125), als in nicht einmal 100 Jahren beinahe die Hälfte der Steinplatten, auf denen etwa ein Drittel aller Schriftzeichen eingraviert ist, angefertigt wurde. Durch eine detaillierte Analyse der Kolophone dieser Zeit werden nicht nur Arbeitsprozesse und Hintergründe des Projekts beleuchtet, die Kolophone geben auch seltene Einblicke in Politik, Gesellschaft und Buddhismus der Liao sowie in das Verhältnis zwischen den herrschenden Kitan und der Han-chinesischen Bevölkerung dieser Region.
Das Werk, das auch aktuelle archäologische Funde aus dem Nordosten Chinas berücksichtigt, stellt eine wichtige Ergänzung zur politischen, sozialen und kulturellen Geschichte der Liao-Dynastie dar.
A towering, human-like figure carved from wood and discovered in a Russian peat bog is more than twice as old as the Egyptian pyramids, scientists have found.
Gold miners discovered pieces of the elongated structure, dubbed the Shigir Idol, in 1894. But it wasn't until about 100 years later, in the late 1990s, that researchers did radiocarbon dating and found that the structure was about 9,900 years old, making it the oldest wooden monumental sculpture in the world, the researchers said.
But this dating wasn't reliable because it included only two pieces from the idol. So scientists recently did a more exhaustive analysis and discovered that the idol is much, much older than previously thought — about 11,500 years old — meaning it was constructed just after the last ice age ended. [25 Grisly Archaeological Discoveries]
This date makes the Shigir Idol more than double the age of the Great Pyramid of Egypt, which was built in about 2550 B.C.
In addition to updating the sculpture's birthday, the researchers found a previously unknown face carved into it, said study co-researcher Thomas Terberger, an archaeologist at the State Agency for Heritage Service of Lower Saxony, in Hannover, Germany.
The head of the wooden Shigir sculpture (1-6) and anthropomorphic face on fragment (7-10).
Credit: E.F. Tamplon; Antiquity 2018
Incredible find
It's a "miracle" that the Shigir Idol survived all this time, Terberger told Live Science. Researchers began studying the larch-carved figure after it was found in the Shigir peat bog, in Russia's Middle Ural Mountains. Pieced together, the sections of the humanoid idol stood more than 17 feet (5 meters) high.
Unfortunately, some of those sections have since been lost, so the idol now stands about 11.1 feet (3.4 m) high, Terberger said. The public can see the carved anthropomorphic figure at the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum.
"When I visited the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum for the first time, I was completely surprised by seeing this large wooden sculpture on display in the exhibition," Terberger said. "If you come closer to the sculpture, you will notice that the 'body' is decorated by geometric ornamentation and a few small human faces."
A drawing of the Shigir sculpture, including (A) the position of the anthropomorphic face discovered in 2014 and (B) the position of an anthropomorphic face found in 2003.
Credit: Tolmachev (1914); Antiquity 2018
Some 20 years after it was discovered, researcher Vladimir Yakovlevich Tolmachev drew illustrations of the idol, noting the structure's five faces, the researchers of the new study noted. In 2003, a sixth, animal-like face with a rectangular nose was found by study co-researcher Svetlana Savchenko, a scientist at the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum.
Just like a hidden-pictures game, the idol surprised researchers again in 2014, when Savchenko and lead study researcher Mikhail Zhilin, an archaeologist at the Institute of Archaeology in Moscow, discovered a seventh face concealed in the gnarled wood.
These facial findings show that the early hunters, gatherers and fishers of Eurasia were making what was possibly spiritual art during the early Mesolithic, the researchers said.
"Such a big sculpture was well visible for the hunter-gatherer community and might have been important to demonstrate their ancestry," Terberger said. "It is also possible that it was connected to specific myths and gods, but this is difficult to prove."
Terberger noted that many researchers studying early humans focus on the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East. But the Shigir Idol indicates that these researchers should widen their search, given the "unexpected, complex monumental wooden art objects" of the Ural Mountains, he said.
The study was published online today (April 25) in the journal Antiquity. The research was made possible by Natalia Vetrova, the director of the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum, Terberger added.
Publisher: Independently published (25 April 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1980893969
In the steppes of High Asia, the year 1166… ‘What is a Mongol? – As free as the geese in the air, as in unison. The flights of the geese promise us we don’t give up independence, to unite.’ The hundred tribes of the Mongols have come together with one aim: to push back against the walls that have crept onto the steppe – farther than China has ever extended its walls before. Walls are repugnant to a nomad. But can people on horses push them down, even with a united effort? This story begins when nobody has heard of Mongols – not even most Chinese, who think the vast Northern Waste at its weakest and are right. A spectacular history starts obscurely… Against Walls is the first in a trilogy that gives voice to the Mongols in their explosive encounter with the great world under Tchingis Khan. Both epic and intimate, Amgalantsees the world through Mongol eyes. It’s different from the world you know.
Publisher: Independently published (25 April 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1980900604
In the steppes of High Asia, the year 1188… ‘Jamuqa rode his trophy mare, off-white, black-pointed, on a Tartar seat, high arches of ornamental silver fore and aft. He wore a winterfur of snow leopard, near white with black whorls. The effect was kingly and fantastic: he might be Irle Khan himself, the king of ghosts, in his eery splendour.’ Aged twenty, Temujin has been named Tchingis, khan over the Mongols. But only a third of his people accept a kingship based on dreams and omens. His own sworn brother Jamuqa challenges his title, and comes in the guise of a mock king against him. The steppe has been without a great khan for three hundred years – fragmented in the face of giant China. Are dreams and omens enough to unify its peoples? What makes a true king? Imaginary Kings is the second in a trilogy that gives voice to the Mongols in their explosive encounter with the great world under Tchingis Khan. Both epic and intimate, Amgalant sees the world through Mongol eyes. It’s different from the world you know. ‘Amgalant brings to life a complex, remote society with amazing immediacy’
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (31 July 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1108441009
How did women contribute to the rise of the Mongol Empire while Mongol men were conquering Eurasia? This book positions women in their rightful place in the otherwise well-known story of Chinggis Khan (commonly known as Genghis Khan) and his conquests and empire. Examining the best known women of Mongol society, such as Chinggis Khan's mother, Hö'elün, and senior wife, Börte, as well as those who were less famous but equally influential, including his daughters and his conquered wives, we see the systematic and essential participation of women in empire, politics and war. Anne F. Broadbridge also proposes a new vision of Chinggis Khan's well-known atomized army by situating his daughters and their husbands at the heart of his army reforms, looks at women's key roles in Mongol politics and succession, and charts the ways the descendants of Chinggis Khan's daughters dominated the Khanates that emerged after the breakup of the Empire in the 1260s.
Women and the Making of the Mongol Empire shall become one of the main reference books not only for the history of Mongol women, but of Mongol empire as a whole. Its analysis of the role of women, especially during the formation and the decades of the united Mongol Empire, is of special relevance for anyone interested in this period. Anne F. Broadbridge has managed to succeed in the always difficult task of combining a solid research with an accessible language that will certainly make this read appealing to scholars and students alike.
Bruno De Nicola, Goldsmiths College, University of London
A brilliant addition and timely corrective to the study of the Mongol Empire. Professor Broadbridge has produced an exciting and unique contribution to the scholarship of the Mongol Empire which will forever change our understanding of the Mongol elite.
Timothy May, University of North Georgia
This book is far more than a gendered history of the Mongol Empire. By exploring the highly complex place of women and marriage in imperial politics, it helps to make sense of the alignments within the imperial dynasty and the actions and policies of Mongol khans and princes.
Peter Jackson, Keele University
In this intelligent and original book, Anne F. Broadbridge has carried the study of women in the Mongol Empire to a new level, and has made an important contribution to our understanding of the Mongol Empire as a whole. The analysis goes well beyond the lives and activities of the most prominent Mongol women to show how dynastic marriages shaped central military institutions and brought manpower into the Mongol enterprise. In examining the family strategies of both privileged and secondary wives, Broadbridge sheds much new light on the difficult and disputed question of tribes within Mongol society, and will be a valuable resource for all future work. Finally, in her fascinating chapters on conquered women, she investigates the emotional and social lives of a group of women who have until now been largely overlooked, but nonetheless played an important part in Mongol history. This work thus offers important new insights on the formation of the Mongol Empire and its successor states.
The epic story of Genghis Khan and the Mongol conquests of Eurasia generates widespread interest, yet still today few know the truth of the matter. Still harder to find are the stories of Genghis Khan's womenfolk, even though no one doubts that there were many, many women in his life. In this lecture, Professor Broadbridge will present three key moments from Mongol history to illustrate the way that imperial women's contributions have dramatically changed Mongol history as we know it.
Anne F. Broadbridge is an Associate Professor of medieval Islamic history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is currently finishing her second book, Imperial Women in the Mongol Empire. Her first book was Kingship and Ideology in the Islamic and Mongol Worlds (Cambridge, 2008). Her research focuses on two fields: first, the Mamluk Sultanate, with a particular interest in diplomacy and ideology; and second, the Mongol Empire, especially ideology, women and politics. She teaches on the Mongols, the Crusades, the Ottomans, early Islamic History, and Islamic Thought.
The notion of "silk roads" conjures images of ancient trade routes, both across land and sea, connecting China with the outside world. Since in recent years there has been something of a paradigm shift in the study of Chinese maritime history, we have chosen the title Beyond the Silk Roads to better convey the most recent trends that take us beyond simple bilateral discussions of trade and economics. Not only scholars within China have taken an interest in this exciting, fast-growing field, but also scholars from across the globe. These include historians as well as archaeologists, anthropologists, geographers, sociologists, and political scientists. Based on new documentary, literary, archaeological, and ethnographic research, the authors explore the multi-dimensional and diverse range of topics that today are subsumed under the heading of maritime history and culture. Utilizing interdisciplinary and multi-linguistic methodologies, the chapters offer cutting-edge discourses on China's role in East Asian maritime history and culture. Chapters include topics on marine archaeology, port cities, sailing routes, trade and cultural networks, nautical technology, folklore, diasporas, law and maritime law, coastal defence, piracy and smuggling, religion and religious cults and many more. It is hoped that this volume will stimulate further research and discussions on maritime history in general and on Asian maritime history in particular.
The catalogue features four sections. The first of "Imperial Portraits" presents the Museum's two precious albums of bust portraits of Mongol Yuan emperors and empresses in their entirety, the former having eight leaves and the latter fifteen. The second one on "Life and Culture" includes a selection of twelve artifacts, including three paintings and two jades on hunting or falcons that mainly describe how the Mongols still preserved important aspects of their nomadic lifestyle after becoming the rulers of China. Two books from the Yuan dynasty on poetry and food record the literary and culinary side of Mongol Yuan life, while a Yuan illustrated ceramic presents the period interest in drama. The Mongols and their long heritage as followers of Tibetan Buddhism led to the selection here of a Buddhist tapestry and illustrated sutra, while a Taoist text presents another facet to the diversity of religious beliefs in the Yuan dynasty. When Kublai Khan ordered Preceptor of State Phagspa to create a new form of writing for the Mongolian language in 1260, the result was "Phagspa scipt," which became the national language in 1269. For this catalogue, five Yuan dynasty seals featuring this script have been chosen, providing valuable information on the Mongolian language. The third section on "History and Geography" includes six important treatises on these two subjects from the Yuan dynasty, while the fourth section on "The Imperial Collection" features five works of "national treasure" status once in the Yuan imperial collection, as evidenced by seals impressed on them by members of the imperial family and their institutions. It indicates that these works were also highly prized by the Mongol rulers for their cultural and artistic value. With the collection of the National Palace Museum as seen here, I firmly believe that a concrete understanding of Mongol Yuan culture can be achieved.
About a millennium ago, in Cairo, an unknown author completed a large and richly illustrated book. In the course of thirty-five chapters, this book guided the reader on a journey from the outermost cosmos and planets to Earth and its lands, islands, features, and inhabitants. This treatise, known as The Book of Curiosities, was unknown to modern scholars until a remarkable manuscript copy surfaced in 2000.
Lost Maps of the Caliphs provides the first general overview of The Book of Curiosities and the unique insight it offers into medieval Islamic thought. Opening with an account of the remarkable discovery of the manuscript and its purchase by the Bodleian Library, the authors use The Book of Curiosities to re-evaluate the development of astrology, geography, and cartography in the first four centuries of Islam. Their account assesses the transmission of Late Antique geography to the Islamic world, unearths the logic behind abstract maritime diagrams, and considers the palaces and walls that dominate medieval Islamic plans of towns and ports. Early astronomical maps and drawings demonstrate the medieval understanding of the structure of the cosmos and illustrate the pervasive assumption that almost any visible celestial event had an effect upon life on Earth. Lost Maps of the Caliphs also reconsiders the history of global communication networks at the turn of the previous millennium. It shows the Fatimid Empire, and its capital Cairo, as a global maritime power, with tentacles spanning from the eastern Mediterranean to the Indus Valley and the East African coast.
As Lost Maps of the Caliphs makes clear, not only is The Book of Curiosities one of the greatest achievements of medieval mapmaking, it is also a remarkable contribution to the story of Islamic civilization that opens an unexpected window to the medieval Islamic view of the world.
Yossef Rapoport is a reader in Islamic history at Queen Mary University of London.
Emilie Savage-Smithis a fellow of the British Academy and recently retired as professor of the history of Islamic science at the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford. She continues as Fellow Archivist of St Cross College. They are coeditors of An Eleventh-Century Egyptian Guide to the Universe: The Book of Curiosities, Edited with an Annotated Translation.
Mapping the Middle East explores the many perspectives from which people have visualized the vast area lying between the Atlantic Ocean and the Oxus and Indus river valleys over the past millennium. By analysing maps produced from the eleventh century on, Zayde Antrim emphasizes the deep roots of mapping in a world region too often considered unexamined and unchanging before the modern period. Indeed, maps from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, coinciding with the eras of European colonialism and the rise of the nation-state, have obscured this deeper past and constrained future possibilities. Mapping the Middle East is organized chronologically to contextualize and interpret compelling maps from each period. Chapters address the medieval `Realm of Islam', the sixteenth- to eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire, French and British colonial mapping over the long nineteenth century, national mapping traditions in modern Turkey, Iran and Israel/Palestine, and alternative geographies in twentieth- and twenty-first-century maps. Vivid colour illustrations allow readers to follow the argument on the surface of the maps. Rather than a conventional history of cartography, Mapping the Middle East is an incisive critique of the changing relationship between maps and belonging in a dynamic world region over the past thousand years.
Zayde Antrim is Associate Professor of History and International Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. She is the author of Routes and Realms: The Power of Place in the Early Islamic World (2012).
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (30 April 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1107107261
This book is a concise biography of Babur, who founded the Timurid-Mughal Empire of South Asia. Based primarily on his autobiography and existential verse, it chronicles the life and career of a Central Asian, Turco-Mongol Muslim who, driven from his homeland by Uzbeks in 1504, ruled Kabul for two decades before invading “Hindustan” in 1526. It offers a revealing portrait of Babur's Perso-Islamic culture, Timurid imperial ambition and turbulent emotional life. It is, above all, a humanistic portrait of an individual, who even as he triumphed in South Asia, suffered the regretful anguish of an exile who felt himself to be a stranger in a strange land.
