Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T09:09:26.571Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Urban centres and the emergence of empires in Eastern Inner Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2015

J. Daniel Rogers ,
Erdenebat Ulambayar  and
Mathew Gallon
J. Daniel Rogers
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, NHB 112, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA (Email: rogers.daniel@nmnh.si.edu)
Erdenebat Ulambayar
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, NHB 112, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA (Email: rogers.daniel@nmnh.si.edu)
Mathew Gallon
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, Gucov Street 77, Ulaanbaatar-51, Mongolia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The inner mechanics of Mongol empires are revealed through recent surveys by an American-Mongolian team. The large political confederations of high mobility which traditionally characterise the great Mongol empires of the first and second millennia AD are shown to have made use of highly sophisticated urban places which feature advanced planning and design, and impressive monumentality serving a variety of specific functions. Planning included open spaces within the walls reserved for the erection of tents.

Keywords

MongoliaMongolcivilisationempireurbanism
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 79 , Issue 306 , December 2005 , pp. 801 - 818
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, R. McC. 1966. The evolution of urban society: early Mesopotamia and Prehispanic Mexico. New York: Aldine.Google Scholar
Allsen, T.T. 1996. Spiritual geography and political legitimacy in the Eastern Steppe, in Claessen, H.J. & Oosten, J.G. (ed.) Ideology and the formation of early states: 116–35. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Ashmore, W. & Knapp, B.A. (ed.). 1999. Archaeologies of landscape: contemporary perspectives. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ashmore, W. & Sabloff, J.A.. 2002. Spatial orders in Maya civic plans. Latin American Antiquity 13: 201–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bairoch, P. 1988. Cities and economic development: from the dawn of history to the present. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Barfield, T.J. 1981. The Hsiung-nu imperial confederacy: organization and foreign policy. Journal of Asian Studies 41: 45–61.Google Scholar
Barfield, T.J. 1989. The perilous frontier: nomadic empires and China, 221 BC to AD 1757. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Barfield, T.J. 2001. The shadow empires: imperial state formation along the Chinese-nomad frontier, in Alcock, S.E. D’Altroy, T.N. Morrison, K.D. & Sinopoli, C.M. (ed.) Empires: perspectives from archaeology and history: 10–41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bayar, D. 1999. Baibalik, Khar Bukhyn Balgas, Khar Khul Khaanii Balgas, in Dashnyam, L. Ochir, N. Urtnasan, N. & Tseveendorj, D. (ed.) Historical and cultural monuments on the territory of Mongolia: 176, 188, 192–3. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Humanities.Google Scholar
Boyd, A. 1962. Chinese architecture and town planning, 1500 B.C.-A.D. 1911. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Boyle, J.A. (trans.). Malik Juvaini, Ata 1958. The history of the world conqueror, 2 vols. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Boyle, J.A. 1972. The seasonal residences of the great khan Ogedei. Central Asiatic Journal 16: 125–31.Google Scholar
Chang, C. & Tourtellotte, P.A.. 1998. The role of agro-pastoralism in the evolution of steppe culture in the Semirechye Area of Southern Kazakhstan during the Saka/Wusun Period (600 BCE-400 CE), in Mair, V.H. (ed.) The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age peoples of eastern central Asia, vol. 1: 264–79. Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man.Google Scholar
Cleaves, F.W. 1952. The Sino-Mongolian inscription of 1346. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 15(1–2): 1–123.Google Scholar
Davydova, A.V. 1995. Ivolginskii arkheologicheskii kompleks: Ivolginskoe gorodishche. Saint Petersburg: Aziatika.Google Scholar
Dawson, C. (ed.). 1955. The Mongol mission: narratives and letters of the Franciscan missionaries in Mongolia and China in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. New York: Sheed & Ward.Google Scholar
Di Cosmo, N. 1994. Ancient Inner Asian nomads: their economic basis and its significance in Chinese history. Journal of Asian Studies 53: 1092–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Di Cosmo, N. 2002. Ancient China and its enemies: the rise of nomadic power in east Asian history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enkhbat, B. 1986. Khar Khul Khaanii Balgas. Studia Archaeologica 11: 1–15.Google Scholar
Frangipane, M. 1997. Arslantepe-Malatya: external factors and local components in the development of an early state society, in Manzanilla, L. (ed.) Emergence and change in early urban societies: 43–58. New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Franke, H. 1978. From tribal chieftain to universal emperor and god: the legitimation of the Yuan Dynasty. Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.Google Scholar
Golden, P.B. 1982. Imperial ideology and the sources of unity among the pre-Cinggisid nomads of western Eurasia. Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 2: 37–76.Google Scholar
Hodges, H.W.M. 1972. Domestic building materials and ancient settlements, in Ucko, P.J. Tringham, R. & Dimbleby, G. (ed.) Man, settlement and urbanism: 523–30. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Honeychurch, W.H. 2004. Inner Asian Warriors and Khans: A Regional Spatial Analysis of Nomadic Political Organization and Interaction. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Honeychurch, W.H. & Amartuvshin, Ch.. 2002. Pastoral production, finance, and organization of a Medieval nomadic polity in Mongolia. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Denver, CO.Google Scholar
Honeychurch, W.H. 2005. States on horseback: the rise of Inner Asian confederations and empires, in Stark, M. (ed.) Archaeology of Asia. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Irons, W. 1979. Political stratification among pastoral nomads, in L’Equipe Ecologie et Anthropologie des Sociétés Pastorales (ed.) Pastoral production and society: 361–74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jagchid, S. 1981. The Kitans and their cities. Central Asiatic Journal 25: 70–88.Google Scholar
Jagchid, S. & Symons, V.J.. 1989. Peace, war, and trade along the Great Wall. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Kato, S. 1997. The ancient city of Kharakhorum. Beijing: UNESCO/New World Press.Google Scholar
Keith, K. 2003. The spatial patterns of everyday life in Old Babylonian neighborhoods, in Smith, M.L. (ed.) The social construction of ancient cities: 56–80. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Kiselev, S.V. (ed.). 1957. Drevnie Goroda Mongolii. Sovetskaia Arkheologiia 2: 91–101.Google Scholar
Kiselev, S.V. 1965. Drevnemongol’skie Goroda. Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Lot-Falck, E. 1956. A propos d’Ätugän, déese Mongole de la terre. Revue de l’Histoire des Religions 149: 145–96.Google Scholar
Mackerras, C. 1972. The Uighur empire according to the T’ang dynastic histories. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
Minorsky, V. 1947. Tamın ibn Bahr’s journey to the Uyghurs. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 12: 275–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moriyasu, T. & Ochir, A.. 1999. Provisional report of researches on historical sites and inscriptions in Mongolia from 1996 to 1998. Tokyo: Society of Central Eurasia Studies.Google Scholar
Moses, L. 1974. A theoretical approach to the process of Inner Asian confederation. Etudes Mongoles 5: 113–22.Google Scholar
Perlee, Kh. 1961. Mongol Ard Ulsyn ert, Dundad Ueiin Khot Suuriny Tovchoon. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar
Plumer, L. & Roth, H.R.. 2002. Notes on a new city map of Qarabalgasun/Mongolia, in Roth, H.R. & Ulambajar, E. (ed.) Qara Qorum-city (Mongolia) I: preliminary report of the excavations 2000/2001: 103–4. Bonn Contributions to Asian Archaeology 1.Google Scholar
Radloff, W. 1892. Atlas der Alterthümer der Mongolei. St. Petersburg.Google Scholar
Rashīd, al-Dīn. 1959. Jāmi’ al-Tavārīkh (ed. B. Karīmī). Tehran: Eqbal.Google Scholar
Róna-Tas, A. 1959. Some Data on the Agriculture of the Mongols, in Bodrogi, Tibor & Boglár, L. (ed.) Opuscula ethnologica memoriae Ludovici Biró Sacra: 443–72. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.Google Scholar
Rosen, A.M., Chang, C. & Grigoriev, F.P.. 2000. Palaeoenvironments and economy of Iron Age Saka-Wusun agro-pastoralists in Southeastern Kazakhstan. Antiquity 74: 611–23.Google Scholar
Rossabi, M. 1987. Khubilai Khan: his life and times. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Roth, H.R. & Ulambajar, E. (ed.). 2002. Qara Qorum-city (Mongolia) I: preliminary report of the excavations 2000/2001. Bonn Contributions to Asian Archaeology 1.Google Scholar
Sanders, W.T., Mastache, A.G. & Cobean, R.H. (ed.). 2003. Urbanism in Mesoamerica, Vol. I. Mexico City and University Park: Instituto National de Antropología e Historia and Pennsylvania State University.Google Scholar
Savinov, D. 1989. The Sayano-Altaic centre of early Medieval cultures. Antiquity 63: 814–26.Google Scholar
Scott, K. 1975. Khitan settlements in northern Mongolia: new light on the social and cultural history of the pre-Chingisid era. Canada Mongolia Review 1: 5–28.Google Scholar
Shiraishi, N. 1997. The city planning of Kharkhorum: the capital of the Mongol empire. Arkheologiin Sudlal 17: 118–26.Google Scholar
Shiraishi, N. 2002. The archaeological researches on the history of the Mongol empire. Tokyo: Doseisha.Google Scholar
Sinopoli, C.M. 2001. Empires, in Feinman, G.M. & Price, T.D. (ed.) Archaeology at the millennium: a sourcebook: 439–71. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.Google Scholar
Smith, M.L. 2003. Early walled cities of the Indian subcontinent as “small worlds”, in Smith, M.L. (ed.) The social construction of ancient cities: 269–89. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Steinhardt, N.S. 1988. Imperial architecture along the Mongolian road to Dadu. Ars Orientalis 18: 59–93.Google Scholar
Stone, E.C. 1995. The development of cities in ancient Mesopotamia, in Sasson, J.M. (ed.) Civilizations of the ancient Near East: 235–48. New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons.Google Scholar
Tang, C. 1981. Agrarianism and urbanism, and their relationship to the Hsiung-nu empire. Central Asiatic Journal 1–2: 110–20.Google Scholar
Tkachev, V. 1987. Nomadic capitals in Central Asia. Information Bulletin: 114–18. Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Trigger, B.D. 2003. Understanding early civilizations: a comparative study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tseveendorj, D. 1999. Kharkhorum, in Dashnyam, L. Ochir, A. Urtnasan, N. & Tseveendorj, D. (ed.) Historical and cultural monuments on the territory of Mongolia: 189–92. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Humanities.Google Scholar
Tsybiktarov, A.D. 2003. Central Asia in the Bronze and Early Iron Ages: problems of ethno-cultural history of Mongolia and the southern Trans-Baikal region in the middle 2nd-early 1st millennia BC. Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 13 (1): 80–97.Google Scholar
Ucko, P.J. & Layton, R. (ed.). 1999. The archaeology and anthropology of landscape: shaping your landscape. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ulambayar, E. 1999. Khar Balgas, in Dashnyam, L. Ochir, A. Urtnasan, N. & Tseveendorj, D. (ed.) Historical and cultural monuments on the territory of Mongolia: 187–8. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Humanities.Google Scholar
Vainshtein, S.I. 1980. Nomads of south Siberia: the pastoral economies of Tuva. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Van Buren, M. & Richards, J.. 2000. Introduction: ideology, wealth, and the comparative study of “civilizations”, in Richards, J. & Van Buren, M. (ed.) Order, legitimacy, and wealth in ancient states: 3–13. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Vreeland, H.H. 1957. Mongol community and kinship structure. New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area Files.Google Scholar
Wheatley, P. 1971. The pivot of the four quarters: a preliminary enquiry into the origins and character of the ancient Chinese city. Chicago, IL: Aldine.Google Scholar