Avarga (''Аварга'' in
Khalkha Mongolian
The Khalkha dialect ( mn, Халх аялгуу / / , ) is a dialect of central Mongolic widely spoken in Mongolia. According to some classifications, the Khalkha dialect includes Southern Mongolian varieties such as ''Shiliin gol'', ''Ulaanch ...
) is the steppe where the first nomadic capital of the
Mongol Empire was located after
Genghis Khan seized the territory from the Jurkin clan. Avraga was located at the confluence of the
Kherlen
Kherlen River (also known as Kern or Kerülen; ; ) is a 1,254 km river in Mongolia and China.
Course
The river originates in the south slopes of the Khentii mountains, near the Burkhan Khaldun mountain in the Khan Khentii Strictly Protecte ...
and Tsenker River, in present-day
Khentii province
Khentii ( mn, Хэнтий) is one of the 21 aimags (provinces) of Mongolia, located in the east of the country. Its capital is Chinggis City. The aimag is named after the Khentii Mountains. It is best known as the birthplace and likely final ...
,
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, ...
.
History
The place was originally called Aurag, meaning ''source'' in the
Mongolian language
Mongolian is the official language of Mongolia and both the most widely spoken and best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residen ...
. Avraga is located near the place where Genghis Khan's family lived.
Oral tradition
Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985) ...
maintains that
Börte
Börte (simply Borte, also Börte Üjin; Mongolian: ; Cyrillic: Бөртэ үжин; c. 1161–1230) was the first wife of Temüjin, who became Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongol Empire. Börte became the head of the first Court of Genghis ...
and other family members continued to live in Avraga during the
Mongol invasion of Khorazm (1218–1223). It was a collection and distribution center for goods from around the empire; but it soon proved too small and the Mongol court established the base of
Karakorum
Karakorum (Khalkha Mongolian: Хархорум, ''Kharkhorum''; Mongolian Script:, ''Qaraqorum''; ) was the capital of the Mongol Empire between 1235 and 1260 and of the Northern Yuan dynasty in the 14–15th centuries. Its ruins lie in th ...
.
Under
Kublai Khan and
his successors, it became a
shrine
A shrine ( la, scrinium "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred or holy space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon, or similar figure of respect, wherein they ...
for the cult of the Genghis Khan.
A 2020 study concluded that Avraga was Genghis Khan's winter base camp, based on
radiocarbon
Carbon-14, C-14, or radiocarbon, is a radioactive isotope of carbon with an atomic nucleus containing 6 protons and 8 neutrons. Its presence in organic materials is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method pioneered by Willard Libby and c ...
chronology.
References
History of Mongolia
{{Mongolia-hist-stub