New publication in "Forschungen zur Archäologie Außereuropäischer Kulturen", FAAK 21

The rise and fall of the Mongol Empire are important turning points in world history. The Mongol conquerors created a huge empire in a short space of time, stretching from eastern Europe to the Pacific. This created a space for intercultural encounters on a previously unknown scale. One place of these encounters was the Mongolian capital Karakorum. After its legendary founding by Genghis Khan himself, it was expanded under his successors and developed into an important centre where the Mongol rulers met with their subjects and vassals from all parts of the world, thus demonstrating their imperial power. The city's heyday lasted barely 160 years, only 40 of which it served as the regular residence of the Mongolian Great Khan. However, a fascinating wealth of historical and archaeological sources have survived from this short period. Mongolian and German archaeologists have been jointly researching the city ruins since 2000. In this volume, Hendrik Rohland presents the evaluation of a presumed Christian Nestorian church on the northern outskirts of the city and embeds the findings in the broad historical-archaeological context of Karakorum, the Mongol Empire and the Church of the East. Based on this case study, the author discusses the functions that the city of Karakorum fulfilled for the nomadic elite and their settled subjects, some of whom travelled from great distances, and places them in the context of urban developments on the Mongolian plateau.

The publication can be downloaded here as a PDF: https://doi.org/10.34780/c4a3-en5a