The Stele of Genghis Khan ( mn, Чингисийн чулууны бичиг, ), also known as the Stele of Yisüngge, is a

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

stele A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), whe ...

inscribed with a dedication to Yisüngge, nephew of

Genghis Khan ''Chinggis Khaan'' ͡ʃʰiŋɡɪs xaːŋbr />Mongol script: ''Chinggis Qa(gh)an/ Chinggis Khagan'' , birth_name = Temüjin , successor = Tolui (as regent)Ögedei Khan , spouse = , issue = , house = Borjigin , ...

, for performing a feat of archery during a gathering of

noyan ''Noyan'' (pl. noyad), or ''Toyon'', was a Central Asian title of authority which was used to refer to civil-military leaders of noble ancestry in the Central Asian Turkic Khanates with origins in ''Noyon'', which was used as a title of authori ...

s after the

Mongol conquest of the Khwarazmian Empire The Mongol invasion of Khwarezmia ( fa, حمله مغول به خوارزمشاهیان) took place between 1219 and 1221, as troops of the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan invaded the lands of the Khwarazmian Empire in Central Asia. The campa ...

, dated to c. 1224–1225. It was discovered in 1802, close to the remains of Khirkhira, a 13th-century settlement in

Transbaikal Transbaikal, Trans-Baikal, Transbaikalia ( rus, Забайка́лье, r=Zabaykalye, p=zəbɐjˈkalʲjɪ), or Dauria (, ''Dauriya'') is a mountainous region to the east of or "beyond" (trans-) Lake Baikal in Far Eastern Russia. The steppe and ...

that served as the center of the territories of

Qasar Qasar (also spelled Hasar or Khasar, and also known as Jo'chi Qasar; Mongolian: Жочи Хасар) was one of Genghis Khan's three full brothers. According to the ''Jami' al-Tawarikh'', his given name was Jo'chi and he got the nickname Khasar ...

and his descendants. Since 1936 it has kept at the

Hermitage Museum The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is the list of ...

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. It is important for containing the first known inscription in

Mongolian Script The classical or traditional Mongolian script, also known as the , was the first writing system created specifically for the Mongolian language, and was the most widespread until the introduction of Cyrillic in 1946. It is traditionally writte ...

History

According to the inscription, the stele commemorates an event that occurred in the settlement of Buqa Sočiγai, whose location is unknown. It was found, however, near Khirkhira in the

region, which according to the

Jami' al-tawarikh The ''Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh'' (Persian/Arabic: , ) is a work of literature and history, produced in the Mongol Ilkhanate. Written by Rashid al-Din Hamadani (1247–1318 AD) at the start of the 14th century, the breadth of coverage of the work h ...

, was part of the

Ulus Ulus may refer to: Places *Ulus, Bartın, a district in Bartin Province, Turkey *Ulus, Ankara, an important quarter in central Ankara, Turkey **Ulus (Ankara Metro), an underground station of the Ankara Metro Other uses * ''Ulus'' (newspaper), a d ...

Rediscovery

The first message about a stone with an inscription carved with "oriental inscriptions" was left by Russian historian and explorer Grigory Spassky in the journal ''Sibirskii Vestnik'' (Siberian Bulletin) in 1818. Later it turned out that the stone was discovered in 1802, not far from the remains of a settlement known as Khirkhira. Khirkhira was located on a low terrace above the flood-plain, close to the mouth of the Khirkhira River, which, through the Urulyunguy River, was a tributary of the Argun River. Local interpreters were able to read the initial two words of the inscription, "Genghis Khan", which led to it being named the "Stele of Genghis Khan". The stele was for a time kept in the "Natural History" room at the mining school of

Nerchinsky Zavod Nerchinsky Zavod (russian: Не́рчинский Заво́д) is a rural locality (a '' selo'') and the administrative center of Nerchinsko-Zavodsky District of Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia, located near the Sino-Russian border. As of the 2010 ...

. Between 1829 and 1832, along with a load of gold, it was transported to

, during which period it was accidentally broken in the middle. Once in Saint Petersburg, it was first transferred to the Ministry of Finance and then to the Academy of Sciences and embedded in the wall in the entrance hall of the

Asiatic Museum The Asiatic Museum (Азиатский музей) in Saint Petersburg was one of the first museums of Asian art in Europe. Its existence spanned 112 years from 1818 to 1930 when it was incorporated into the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the ...

. In 1936, it was transferred to the Hermitage, to this day occupying a central place in the permanent exhibition of the Mongolian Art Hall in the third floor of the museum.

Copies

Copies of the stele exist in various museums, including the

National Museum of Mongolia The National Museum of Mongolia ( mn, 1=Монголын үндэсний түүхийн музей); formerly the National Museum of Mongolian History is located in Ulaanbaatar. It characterizes itself as "a cultural, scientific, and educational ...

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

and the

Inner Mongolia Museum The Inner Mongolia Museum () is a regional museum in the city of Hohhot in Inner Mongolia, in north China. History and location In 2007, a newer and 10 times bigger modern museum was constructed about 5 kilometers to the east, located at the int ...

Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...

. A

volumetric model In 3D computer graphics and modeling, volumetric meshes are a polygonal representation of the interior volume of an object. Unlike polygon meshes, which represent only the surface as polygons, volumetric meshes also discretize the interior struct ...

of the stele was created in 2017 by the Hermitage's Laboratory for Science Restoration of Precious Metals, so that an exact polymer replica could be grown layer-by-layer. The replica was presented to

in 2019 to be placed in the under-construction Genghis Khan Museum in

Ulaanbaatar Ulaanbaatar (; mn, Улаанбаатар, , "Red Hero"), previously anglicized as Ulan Bator, is the capital and most populous city of Mongolia. It is the coldest capital city in the world, on average. The municipality is located in north ce ...

Inscription

The text of the stele consists of 5 lines - the first line, containing the name

is elevated as a sign of respect, as is the fourth line that contains the name of his nephew Yisüngge (but lower than the first). The scribe's writing style is also uncommon, as they write a few distinct letters with the same forms, such as ᠭ(γ) and ᠬ(q), making the stele somewhat difficult to read. According to

Igor de Rachewiltz Igor de Rachewiltz (April 11, 1929 – July 30, 2016) was an Italian historian and philologist specializing in Mongol studies. Igor de Rachewiltz was born in Rome, the son of Bruno Guido and Antonina Perosio, and brother of Boris de Rachewiltz ...

(2010), the inscription reads (with letters in parentheses being unclear):

As the ''ald'' is a unit of measure equal to the length between someone's outstretched arms, approximating 160 cm = one ald results in 335 ald being equal to ~536 m.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{Cite book, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DuCRAgAAQBAJ, title=The Mongolic Languages, last=Janhunen, first=Juha, date=2006-01-27, publisher=Routledge, isbn=978-1-135-79690-7, language=en{{Rp, 38–39 {{cite web, url=http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_Ru/08/hm89_0_2_123.html, title=Зал искусства Монголии, accessdate=2009-01-20, archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090408150657/http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_Ru/08/hm89_0_2_123.html, archivedate=2009-04-08 {{cite web , url=https://tass.ru/kultura/7281689 , title=Эрмитаж подарил Монголии копию Чингисова камня - Культура - ТАСС , format= , work= , accessdate=2021-12-05 , date=2019-12-06 {{cite web , url=https://mongoltoli.mn/history/h/477 , title=Чингисийн чулууны бичиг , format= , work= , accessdate=2021-12-05 {{cite web , url=https://www.atarn.org/mongolian/mongol_1.htm , title=WHAT IS THE SCRIPT ON THE CHINGGIS KHAN'S STELE ABOUT? A monument to top athletic performance? A Monument to the Uigarjin Mongolian script? , website=ATARN Home Page , work= , accessdate=2021-12-05 , date=2019-12-06 , author=Dr Gongor LHAGVASUREN {{cite web , url=http://ez.chita.ru/encycl/concepts/?id=4974 , title=Чингисов камень , website=Энциклопедия Забайкалья , format= , work= , accessdate=2021-12-05 , author= {{cite book , author=Rachewiltz , title=Introduction to Altaic philology : Turkic, Mongolian, Manchu , publisher=Brill , publication-place=Leiden Boston , year=2010 , isbn=978-90-04-18889-1 , oclc=707926722 {{cite journal , last1 = Kradin , first1= N.N. , last2 = , first2 = , date = , title = WHO WAS THE BUILDER OF MONGOL TOWNS IN TRANSBAIKALIA?* , url = https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326077318_Who_Was_the_Builder_of_Mongol_Towns_in_Transbaikalia , journal = ЗОЛОТООРДЫНСКОЕ ОБОЗРЕНИЕ / GOLDEN HORDE REVIEW , volume = , issue = , pages = , doi = 10.22378/2313-6197.2018-6-2.224-237 , access-date = 2021-12-05 , doi-access= free 13th-century inscriptions Steles Monuments and memorials in Russia Collection of the Hermitage Museum History of the Mongolian language Mongolia–Russia relations mn:Чингисийн чулууны бичиг Mongolian inscriptions