This is the third part in our series discussing Eurasian steppe nomads and blacksmithing, which covers as well society, economy and even cities in the eastern Eurasian steppes. In the previous two parts, I gave an overview of general trends and evidence for nomadic metal production, and then looked at some specific sites covering from the Xiongnu to the early Turkic states. In this final part of the trilogy, our story starts in the 10th century with the Khitan ruled Liao Dynasty, and then to the Mongol Empire of Chinggis Khan, where we see some of our most dramatic developments yet. Part 1: Overview of Nomadic Blacksmithing: kzread.info/dash/bejne/dHaF17h7g7nMqbw.html Part 2: from the Xiongnu to the Türks: kzread.info/dash/bejne/nGmpxLiJlcXggZs.html 00:34 Khitan Liao and Jurchen Jin Periods (ninth-twelfth centuries) 04:19 Khitans and Cast Iron 06:59 Mineral Coal in Mongolia 09:31 Mongol Empire 11:32 Avarga (first capital of Chinggis Khan 13:00 Irons Bars 15:09 Chinqai Balasghun 16:09 Qaraqorum, capital of the Mongol World Empire 20:25 Culture

@elshebactm6769

Жыл бұрын

🗿👍🏿

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

@@elshebactm6769 Couldn't have said it better myself.

Hopefully we can see a video on Mongol heavy cavalry in the upcoming days

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

Not the next few days I am afraid, but I have started work on it!

@ramibairi5562

Жыл бұрын

@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory My best wishes bro

Thank you for making these 3 videos on this topic

Great content as always. And always happy to see more Khitan stuff.

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

Happy you enjoyed it! It was good to return to the Khitans; felt like meeting old friends I hadn't seen in a long time. Definitely should do more with them in future as their legacy and rule is quite important for what happens in Mongolia from 10th to 13th centuries.

Still The best source for any mongol enthusiast Thank you Jack!

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

I'd like to think so, thank you!

I really liked the series and the videos on Eurasian steppe culture and history. A lot of misconception have been addressed, so pleade keep it up! Just as a note; to produce cast iron, you do not need to reach that high melting point of + 1550 C°. That is actually the melting point of pure iron, which is not found in nature as it is always mixed with other elements. When you leave iron ores in a bloom long enough, carbon diffusion will start which in returns lower the melting point of the material, making it absorbing ever more carbon and so on. Cast iron melting temperature is around 1100 °C. So this is probably how they got that, even without using large Chinese style blast furnaces

What a great video ! You're a legend ♡

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

Thank you!

Excellent video.

I'm still missing an episode about the Khazars 😂

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

Should I feel adventurous in future I'll do a series on blacksmithing in the western steppes and gives the Khazars some attention. But I'd have to do a lot more reading before I felt confidant to really speak about the Khazars in any capacity as I don't know very much about them.

@Alvaro_Litti

Жыл бұрын

Cool

I just learned that nobles would be the blacksmith in the ceremony. That´s so cool and interesting. Where can I read more about it? Btw, it was a fantastic series on Nomad Blacksmithing; I learned a lot from you, thanks.

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

As a starting point, Simon Berger has a recent article which discusses this topic, and he cites some scholarship and sources on it. Since he places it into some context across the Turkic and Mongolic world it's a good place to start before something denser. He has also indicated to me his interest in further work on this topic as well. Simon Berger, “Chinggis Khan Defeated: Plano Carpini, Jūzjānī, and the Symbolic Origins of the Mongol Empire.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Series 3, 31 no. 1 (2021): 71-102.

@buh357

Жыл бұрын

@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory I will read it, Bayralla.

Great work. 👍

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

Thank you!

In the middle of the sixth century the Turkic group bearing the ethnonym Türk crushed the Ruanruan and gained control of the castern steppes for the next few hundred years. The subsequent Türk empires at times also controlled Mongolic and Para-Mongolic peoples, including the Khitan, who copied political and organizational terms from Turkic. During this period, the ancestors of the historical Mongols are likely to have been contained within the entities known by the names Otuz Tatar (Shiwei) and Toquz Tatar (Southern Shiwei), located east and southeast of Lake Baikal. West and north of the lake were the Turkic Üc Qurigan, the linguistic ancestors of the Yakut. In 742 the Türk were defeated by the likewise Turkic confederation of the Uighur, who, in turn, were pushed aside by the Ancient Kirghiz in the 840s. Some Uighur tribes took refuge with the Otuz Tatar, but most of them withdrew to the oases of Eastern Turkestan. The Uighur then never returned to the steppes, even when they were invited by the Khitan, who had overcome the Kirghiz in the 920s. In the twelfth century, part of the Khitan, subseqently known as the Black Khitan (Qara Qitay), migrated westward to Central Asia and became Turkicized. In Mongolia, the immediate linguistic ancestors of the historical Mongols spread Mongolic (Pre-Proto- Mongolic) speech to territories previously held by Turkic speaking populations. The Mongols mainly occupied the basins of the rivers Orkhon and Kerulen, but the closely related Kereit and Naiman tribes expanded further to the west. Both the Kereit and espe- cially the Naiman may have contained unassimilated Turkic elements, as is suggested by the occurrence of Turkic names and titles among them. Janhunen, J. (2011) The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. p.406

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

There isn't too great evident for a Kirghiz presence in the Mongolian plateau after the 840s; most evidence seems to indicate they returned to the Yenisei within a few years of the invasion. It seems instead that the major khanate in Mongolia when the Khitan-Liao rise to power, was the Kereyid, judging from Liao accounts of continuing warfare with them. There is recent and intriguing argument that most peoples in Mongolia, up until the unification of Chinggis Khan, more or less saw themselves as operating within a fragmented "Kereyid khanate," and that Toğrul/Jamuqa/Temüjin's combat became, in effect, an effort to decide the successor to Toğrul Ong Khan, as the Khan of the Kereyid... only for Temüjin to supersede it entirely.

@lt419

Жыл бұрын

In Mongolia, since the Hunnuc empire times, the dominant language has always been the Mongolian. The recent decoding of many rock writings found in Mongolia revealed that the case grammar, words perfectly match the modern Mongolian language.

@legendsson

Жыл бұрын

​​@@lt419 show me the sources 1st millenia was all about turkic runic writings not the mongols

@papazataklaattiranimam

Жыл бұрын

@@lt419 👽👽👽

@papazataklaattiranimam

Жыл бұрын

@@lt419 Most of the Mongolic loanwords in Turkic were transmitted during and after the Mongol empire , but there are items obviously predating the rise of the historical Mongols.598 The Turkic loanwords in Mongolic , on the other hand were transmitted in at least two major waves, of which only the second corresponds to the period of Turkic dominance in Mongolia . The loanwords of this second wave bear linguistic characteristics more or less congruous with the historically recorded Turkic idioms of the Turk and Uighur Khanates.599 The loanwords of the first wave , however , derive from a Turkic language of a fundamentally different type .

Historical sources mention that the Uighurs contributed to transferring the alphabet, agriculture, and building cities to the Khitan. The Uighurs also had their own camp near the northern capital of the Liao dynasty, located in the steppe.

Hi long time fan. Can you recommend any books on mongol or Chinese iron production. And any books on mongol agriculture outside of cattle raising

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

All the sources I used for this series on nomad iron production I listed here, with links where available. docs.google.com/document/d/1lLOBWh1lRINBGlAuedyR5xQEWVolRmCgsvg0GMZw10s/edit

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

I don't know any works dedicated solely to the topic of agriculture in Mongolia off the top of my head, so I would have to look into that. I

@georgekaziyev5423

Жыл бұрын

@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory thank you

Would like to see an encyclopedia with this kind of pictures

Very interesting subject. What books would you recommend reading on this subject?

As a gun enthusiast, I would be very interested in early firearm technology under the Yuan dynasty. Or just early gunpowder encounters/uses by the Mongols in general.

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

Not saying no to that by under means, but when I researched the gunpowder use by the Mongols for that Kings and Generals video on the topic, the problem that appears to me for going into a specific as "Development in Yuan" is that there isn't quite enough to really trace it beyond inferences. I.e, there's sporadic mentions and a few extant cannons, but I'd only be saying marginally more than what I wrote in that video honestly.

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

kzread.info/dash/bejne/dYSow7hymJS0kag.html the Mongols/gunpowder video with Kings and Generals, for someone who comes across this and is curious

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

You may be interested in the longer, and annotated version of that Kings and Generals script that I uploaded to my academia.edu page. I included more specific information there had got cut for time for the video: www.academia.edu/48936253/Mongol_Explosion_The_Mongolian_Usage_of_Gunpowder_Weapons

Jackmiester one thing which intrigues me to this day is why is it that non of the tombs of mongol khans have been found especially the famous ones ( batu.berke.ogedi.kublai.hulagu) were they all buried in the traditional mongol styel to be left in a high mountain or hill or were they buried in the style of genghis?

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

The policy of secret burials for the khans was one they held to rather strictly. Khubilai and most of the Yuan Khans were buried on Burkhan Khaldun; Ogedei was buried in the area later called Dzungaria (is was his personal territory); for Golden Horde khans there was some sort of secret site apparently in the region of where their capitals Sarai were, but it's a bit vague. For the Ilkhanate is where things differ. Hulegu was buried on a small island just off the coast in the Caspian Sea. The island is known but I don't believe any tomb was ever found; likely it was looted well in the past. For the latter Ilkhans, they actually built some monumental tombs for themselves in islamic style; Ghazan at Tabriz, and Oljeitu at his capital, Sultaniyya/Soltaniyeh. Oljeitu's tomb still stands, but Ghazan's tomb, if I understand correctly, was toppled in a series of earthquakes some centuries later and I don't believe anything remains of it.

@ironmiketyson220

Жыл бұрын

@The Jackmeister: Mongol History There are so many unanswered questions, for example. Who was kublai in (genghis khans, 4 dogs pf war). What happened to baidar, son of chagatai. And how exactly did guyuk die?

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

1) this was Qubilai Noyan of the Barulas (same group that Tamerlane came from!). I beleive he is also the member of the keshig called Qublai Qorchi. In the 1206 quriltai he was made a "Head of all military affairs," and had joint command of a Minggan with Bedü'ün. He was also responsible for bringing the (peaceful) submission of the Qarluq of Almaliq around 1210-11. I don't know if his final fate is recorded though and I don't recall any mention of him partaking in campaigns in China or Khwarezm. So I suspect he is one of those early commanders who simply die and have their fate unmentioned in the sources; it's not that unusual, given how the Mongol sources also don't describe Jebe's fate directly.

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

2) I am uncertain as to Baidar's ultimate fate. His last definitive mention is at Güyük's coronation in 1246. It seems he dies sometime before or early in the reign of Möngke, for Ariq Böke appoints Baidar's son Alghu to become Chagatai Khan, something not so likely if Baidar was still alive. He may even have been killed in Möngke's purges in 1251, but this seems less likely on account of the fact the sources are rather clear on who dies there, and a son of Chagatai would be a notable fatality.

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

3) For Güyük unfortunately there will be no clear answer. There are accusations he was poisoned by one of Batu's brothers, Shiban. But he also seems to have been in general a somewhat sickly man who was also an alcoholic; it's possible it's just one of those coincidences of history, but even at the time people thought Batu was behind it.

I would see a Video about the liao dynasty or the Xiongou northern xia dynasty

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

it's been one of my plans for a long time to do something on Liao Rule in Mongolia and twelfth century Mongolia before Chinggis. This project was a very useful advance in that effort but I still need to do much more research before that ever becomes ready to turn into a script.

@toucanmasterx

11 ай бұрын

​@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory Okay i would also too see if the liao dynasty surived to this day how would it look like

I don’t have access to a lot of history especially information overseas, besides I can’t read or write other languages. Since you know a lot about Mongols do you know how they got their name? Is term Mong/Meng ever found in history? I read that Mong people were the Khitans/Qidan. How is it possible that the name Mong just suddenly disappeared especially so recently within the last 60-70 years.

Jackmiester why didn't Batu khan become great khan of the mongol empire?

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

Likely he wasn't allowed. It seems there was some sort of understanding, initially, that the succession to the Imperial throne would remain in the line of Ögedei... which is why it was such a big deal when Möngke usurped the throne. Batu, as a son of Jochi (whose own paternity remained uncertain) was basically double-locked out of the process. Besides, he appears to have been quite content with the territory allotted to him. In Möngke's time Batu was essentially the #2 man of the empire, Möngke's viceroy of the west.

How was that area capabile to give so many different nations?

@ElBandito

Жыл бұрын

Large river valleys and fertile grasslands are a start.

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

I guess it depends on how you classify nations. But generally these are not "100% replacement of existing populations" over time. As far as I have heard, most genetic studies generally indicates the population demographics not to have changed too dramatically since the Xiongnu period (though there was certainly waves of migration into and out of the Mongolian plateau). Rather these are successive political bodies, changing governments. One empire is toppled, and the successor is often one of it previous subjects. It's a pattern which applies to most regions around Eurasia. Take China for example; rather than one continuous government, it's many distinct, sometimes totally alien governments ruling a larger population, with that larger population not being replaced every century but simply under "new management."

@aiurea1

Жыл бұрын

@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory nations in the sense of self identification, I agree they are similar. Very similar with N Germany and Scandinavia from where a lot of nations emigrated. Probably if they hadn't migrated we would have interpret them as being continuos no matter who ruled. Are Jurchen and Manchu considered the same?

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

@@aiurea1 The Jurchen and Manchu are a great example for this: if I recall correctly, it was literally a case of Hong Taiji (son of Nurhaci) literally deciding to rename them, around the same time as officially establishing the Qing Dynasty, in this vein of "imperial transformation." So it's literally the same population, but as the Jurchen name was not (as I understand it) considered "regal enough" for the pretensions of the new emperor.

Is it weird that the word for long wall is the same as squirrel? I mean the word for wall is Khana where did Kherem come from?

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

Hah! I did not know the squirrel meaning. "Squirrel of Chinggis Khan," is quite the image. I don't know the precise origin of the word, but the use as wall/rampart is for a few archaeological sites today; Zuun Kherem, Baruun Kherem (both Khitan forts, which get translated as east/west rampart), Ulaan Kherem. Strnage coincidence that they are all Khitan-associated sites, but the names given them are modern.

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

I had a brief look in my dictionary for Middle Mongolian and could not find kherem in there (though Khana was there) so I don't know where kherem comes from.

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

Perhaps just one of those peculiarities of every language that noone notices until it gets pointed out to them.

@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory

Жыл бұрын

I asked around and so far people are saying: in classical script squirrel was written kheremu, and wall kherem. But in Cyrillic they are both херем

@AppliedInsight

9 ай бұрын

​@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory possible explanation is kheremu comes from the root word kherekh, which means confine/surround some area. For example, if someone say " sew it in a kherekh way" means sew it parallelly along the rims untill it is done.

why didn’t they just build their capital place near baikia lake