Project Details
Projekt
Settlement system and economic practices in the Orkhon Valley during the Mongol Empire
Applicant
Professor Dr. Jan Bemmann
Subject Area
Prehistory and World Archaeology
Term
since 2023
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 468897144
During the reign of Ögödei (1229-1241), the successor of Genghis Khan, the Mongolian Empire entered a phase of consolidation. In 1235, he had Karakorum expanded as the capital and settled craftsmen and administrative specialists in the city. Envoys, tributes and loot reach the city, and there are repeated reports of the bulging treasure houses next to the ruler's palace. The available data from written sources and archaeology indicates that the city of Karakorum, the residences and the settlements were built within a period of only four years (1235-1238) under Ögödei Khan. Creating an urban landscape from scratch in a region without any existing cities is a masterpiece and has not been recognized as such until now. The valley must have been quickly transformed from a pastoral economy with low density of campsites and population into an urban landscape organized by the empire with corresponding radical changes in settlement patterns, land use, and composition of the population. The sudden need of additional energy and also of other resources must have been a challenge for nature and man. Taking all indications together there must have been an enormous urban impact of the environment. This project aims at studying all known settlements with non-movable architecture of the Mongol empire in the middle Orkhon Valley. These settlements are to be completely recorded in their extent, settlement plans are to be drawn up and their structure is to be described. Pyrotechnic installations should be localized and, if possible, their function determined. In close cooperation with SP3 and SP4 this project will produce precise magnetic and topographic maps of all the sites in question. In addition, two activities that are central for the verification of the theses of the Research Unit will be recorded for Mongolia for the first time: Agriculture and iron smelting. Close cooperation with SP5 will result in a knowledge of agricultural practices at the Bayan Gol site and in addition to it a classification and dating of field systems will be established for the first time in Mongolia. Several surveys will be conducted to localize iron smelting sites in the region. The various steps of iron production are very energy and labor intensive. We assume that primarily wood respectively charcoal was used as fuel, so that the abruptly increased demand can be captured in the environmental archives. In cooperation with SP2 we will continue the pedestrian surveys in the Orkhon Valley with a special focus on the area in the northwest part of the valley where we discovered a new settlement. Together with already gathered information from previous surveys we will get a first understanding of the density of the settlement pattern, the relationship between seasonal and permanent sites, and the network of producing sites for supplying the city and the residences.
DFG Programme
Research Units
