Karakorum: Capital of the Mongol Empire between 1235 and 1260

Between 1235 and 1260, Karakorum served as the capital of the Mongol Empire and the Northern Yuan in the 14th and 15th centuries. Its ruins are located in Mongolia's Övörkhangai Province, near the modern town of Kharkhorin and adjacent to the Erdene Zuu Monastery, the country's most likely oldest surviving Buddhist monastery. They're in the Orkhon Valley's upper reaches, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Foundation of Empires

The Orkhon valley was the heartland of the Xiongnu, Göktürk, and Uyghur empires. The neighbouring Khangai Mountains had been the site of the Ötüken for the Göktürks, and the Uyghur capital Karabalgasun was close to where the Karakorum would be built (27 km northwest of the Karakorum, downstream the Orkhon River). This region is likely one of Mongolia's oldest farming zones. Genghis Khan gathered his troops for the fight against the Khwarezm Empire in a region called the Karakorum in 1218–19, while the entire building of a city is commonly attributed to 1220. The Karakorum appears to have been little more than a yurt town until 1235, when Genghis' successor Ögedei erected walls around the city and built a permanent palace when the Jin empire was defeated. Ögedei Khan ordered to build the Tumen Amgalan Ord (Palace of Myriad Peace, Wan'an'gong in Chinese) in 1235, the year after conquering the Jin Dynasty.   It took a year to complete. "The Wanangong was established in Helin in the seventh year (1236), in the year of the blue sheep," according to the Yuan History section on Taizong Ögedei Khan. One of Genghis Khan's nine ministers, Khitan Yelü Chucai (1190–1244), recited the following poem during the Tumen Amgalan Ord's ridge raising ceremony: "Installed ridge well fit and stone foundation, The parallel positioned grand palace has been raised, The setting sun invites the horses of war to itself from the mountain tops when the Lord's and officials' bells and drums ring beautifully."  The name the Karakorum, also known as "Kharkhorin," means "black-twenty." Linguists argue that the word 'khorin' may have been a mistranslation of the Mongolian word 'khurem,' meaning "castle." Other translations are different.

Prosperity

The Karakorum became a key centre for world affairs under Ögedei and his successors. Möngke Khan expanded the Palace, and the massive stupa temple was built. They commissioned Guillaume Bouchier, a Parisian jeweller, to create the Silver Tree of the Karakorum for the city centre. A gigantic silver and other precious metals-sculpted tree sprang up from the middle of the courtyard and loomed over the Palace, its branches reaching into the structure. Silver fruit dangled from the limbs, and four golden serpents were braided around the trunk, with a trumpeting angel perched atop the tree, all as automata playing for the emperor's delight. The mechanical angel brought the trumpet to his lips and blew the horn when the Khan desired drinks for his guests, and the serpents' mouths began to pour a fountain of alcoholic liquids into the big silver basin at the base of the tree. 

Later Times

When Kublai Khan and his younger brother, Ariq Böke, gained the Mongol throne in 1260, they moved their capital from Shangdu to Khanbaliq (Dadu, today's Beijing). The Yuan dynasty, which was created in China in 1271, reduced the Karakorum to a simple administrative centre of a provincial backwater. The Toluid Civil Battle with Ariq Böke that followed and the subsequent war with Kaidu profoundly impacted the town. Kublai cut off the town's food supply in 1260, and Kaidu seized the Karakorum in 1277, only to be defeated by Yuan forces and Bayan of the Baarin the following year.  Prince Ulus Buqa pillaged the city's markets and food stores in 1298–99. However, the first part of the 14th century proved to be a new era of prosperity: the town was expanded eastwards in 1299, then the stupa temples were restored in 1311 and again from 1342 to 1346.

Decline

After the Yuan dynasty fell apart in 1368, Biligtü Khan took up residence in the Karakorum in 1370. The Karakorum was conquered and later sacked by Ming soldiers in 1388. According to Saghang Sechen's Erdeni-yin Tobi, a khuriltai resolved to repair it in 1415, but no archaeological evidence for this endeavour has yet been discovered. The Karakorum was populated again towards the beginning of the 16th century when Batu-Möngke Dayan Khan reestablished it as a capital. The settlement was passed between Oirads and Chinggisids over the years until it was utterly abandoned.

Near Karakorum is the Erdene Zuu Monastery. The monastery was built using various construction materials salvaged from the wreckage. Karakorum's exact location had been a mystery for a long time. The remains of the Karakorum, also known as Ordu-Baliq, were first discovered at Erdene Zuu in the 18th century. However, there remained debates until the 20th century about whether they were those of Karakorum. Finally, Nikolai Yadrintsev, who uncovered samples of the Orkhon script during the same trip, definitively recognized the site as the historic Mongol capital in 1889. Wilhelm Radloff verified Yadrintsev's conclusions. Under the direction of D. Bukinich, the first excavations took place in 1933–34. Sergei Kiselyov concluded that he had discovered the remnants of Gödei's Palace after his Soviet-Mongolian excavations in 1948–49. However, the findings of the German-Mongolian excavations in 2000–2004 cast doubt on this conclusion, as they appear to belong to the big stupa temple rather than gödei's Palace. Paved roads, some brick and many adobe dwellings, floor heating systems, bed-stoves, traces of copper, gold, silver, iron (including iron wheel naves), glass, gems, bones, and birch bark processing, as well as ceramics and coinage from China and Central Asia, were discovered during the excavation. In addition, four kilns have been discovered.

Based on the most recent archaeological investigations, the Virtual Kharakhorum project of 2020 rebuilt the city in an explorable 360-degree style. The following are some of the city's most notable structures.

Khan's Palace

Built in 1236 and surrounded by the city's wall, the Tumen Amgalan Ord (Palace of Myriad Peace) was located towards the city's southern end.  The huge tower outside the Erdene Zuu Monastery on its northwest side was traditionally thought to be the Khan's Palace. The Pavilion of the Rising Yuan, which stands at 300 feet (90 meters) tall, was later identified as a huge skyscraper. The Khan's Palace is currently assumed to have stood on the exact location of the Erdene Zuu Monastery. The Palace was divided from the city by its northern wall, which can be seen clearly on satellite pictures. 13th-century walls have been unearthed beneath the existing monastery walls. "Mangu had a fine palace at Caracarum, adjacent to the city walls, encompassed by a high wall like the ones that enclose monks' priories among us," William of Rubruck said.  Under the 13th century walls, an even older stratum dating from the 8th century was uncovered. The Takhai Balgas (Takhai City) recorded in Mongolian chronicles linked to the foundation of the Erdene Zuu Monastery has been theorized to be this. Genghis Khan established his capital in the Karakorum in 1220, according to both the Yuanshi and the Karakorum Sino-Mongolian Inscription of 1342, and Ögedei Khan later erected a wall around the entire city in 1236. During Genghis Khan's reign, some portions of the smaller old wall may have persisted, and his Palace would have been stationed on the Palace of Myriad Peace site. The Khan's mobile Palace is normally positioned in the middle of a traditional Khuree (circular, mobile camp) configuration, with an open square or unobstructed space to the well-guarded south. The non-palatial component of the settlement at the Karakorum only extended north of the Palace, with no settlement to the south. The Khan had full access to the nearby river and forested mountains to the south and south-west, which he used for hunting, keeping with the Khuree's core concept. This also meant that no towns were established upstream of the Orkhon River, which ran north-westwards along the city's western border from the southern mountains. At Urga (modern-day Ulaanbaatar), where the Khan was assigned the city's southern half along the river and mountain, a similar structure prevailed. At the same time, the ger districts expanded to the north. "The Khan sits on a lofty location to the north, so that all can see him; and two rows of steps run up to him: by one he who carries his cup climbs up, and by the other, he comes down," wrote William of Rubruck of the Khan's Palace in the Karakorum.  Because here stands his cup-bearer, as well as envoys with presents, and he sits up there like a divinity, the area between the tree and the steps leading up to him is empty. The men are on his right side, facing west, while the women are on his left." As William of Rubruck notes separately in his narrative, this was in keeping with the internal configuration of a Mongolian ger: "When they have finished repairing their home, they turn the door to the south and place the master's couch on the north side. Thus, the women's side is always the east side, that is, to the left of the master's residence, where he sits on his couch with his face to the south. The men's side is on the right, which is the west side." This arrangement and the practice of not touching the entrance threshold (as reported by Rubruck) have persisted among Mongols to this day. Apart from Karakorum's permanent Palace, the Khan's moving Palace moved about the city regularly and settled in a ring form (Huriye or circular enclosure) at its stations. For four months, William of Rubruck worked as a Khan's priest (together with a healer monk from Jerusalem) in this floating Palace before accompanying the Khan and his movable Palace into the Karakorum in April 1254. Despite the Ming's destruction of the permanent Palace in 1388, the region had a moveable palace until 1585, when Abtai Sain Khan, the senior Genghisid of the central Mongolian region, decided to recreate the permanent palace area as a monastery (Erdene Zuu) using Karakorum stones and bricks. Erdene Zuu was also the Urga mother monastery (Ulaanbaatar). Tushnet Khan Gombodorj, the grandson of Abtai Sain Khan (both of whose mausoleums are within Erdene Zuu), constructed Urga in 1639 as a dwelling for his 5-year-old son Zanabazar. Urga (Palace) was originally staffed by monks from nearby Erdene Zuu and was known as the Huriye (circular enclosure). Urga received gears from Gombodorj's Huriye and Abtai Sain Khan's ger-temple (Abtai Sain Khan's gear was disassembled at Ulaanbaatar in 1937). The Huriye naturally derived from Gombodorj's Huriye, and possibly the only Huriye in the world is the circular ger-district around Gandantegchenlin Monastery in Ulaanbaatar (itself an extension of the Zuun Khuree/Huriye). In 792, Pepin of Italy captured a Huriye known as the Ring of the Avars (written Hiring), a circular fortification of the Avar khagan containing three centuries' worth of wealth and valuables. According to William of Rubruck, "there are several buildings as long as barns" within Karakorum's Palace, "in which are housed his food and his treasures." Ata-Malik Juvayni, a former resident of Karakorum, writes in his History of the World Conqueror that Ögedei Khan frequently permitted people into the open yard of these treasure buildings, where they were free to steal as much as they could in a set length of time. From this wealth, the Khan provided regular contributions to the city's poor.  The Palace was constructed in the Chinese architectural style, popular in the region since the Xiongnu period. As recounted in Yelu Chucai's poem, three great palace buildings stand side by side in a parallel configuration. Erdene Zuu Monastery's three main buildings are parallel and sit on a raised platform, similar to the older Palace. The Sino-Mongolian inscription of 1342 was found imbedded in several places in the walls of Erdene Zuu Monastery, adding to the evidence that the monastery was mostly constructed with Karakorum stones and bricks. The Silver Tree, created by William of Paris, was a prominent feature inside the main Palace.