The Mongol Moment (1200-1450)

The Mongol Moment (1200-1450)

• The Central Asian nation of Mongolia celebrated the "Day of Mongolian Pride" in late 2012, marking the 850th anniversary of Chinggis Khan's birth.
• The celebration involved laying wreaths at a monument, competitions for wrestlers and archers, dance performances, scholarly presentations, and traditional costumes.
• A large bronze statue of Mongolia's founder was unveiled in central London for the occasion.
• The celebrations reflect a shift in Mongolian thinking about Chinggis Khan since the 1990s towards celebrating Chinggis Khan as a unifier, promoter of religious tolerance, and economic/cultural ties.
• Chinggis Khan had been regarded negatively under the earlier Soviet-backed communist government of Mongolia.
• Chinggis Khan's memory has made a comeback with his name appearing on vodka, cigarettes, a chocolate bar, beer brands, and the central square of the capital city.
• Chinggis Khan's picture is on Mongolia's stamps and money.

Pastoral People

• The Mongols played an enormous role in the Eurasian world during the 13th and 14th centuries.
• The Mongols serve as a useful corrective in the study of history, which often focuses almost exclusively on agricultural peoples and civilizations.
• The Mongols were pastoralists who centered their economic lives around herds of animals, not constructing elaborate cities or monumental works but leaving an indelible mark on Afro-Eurasia.
• The "revolution of domestication" began around 11,500 years ago, involving both plants and animals; people combined farming with animal husbandry.
• An alternative food-producing economy emerged around 4000 B.C.E., focused on livestock raising with animals providing milk, blood, wool, hides, and meat.
• Primary animals included horses, camels, goats, sheep, cattle, yaks, and reindeer.
• Pastoral societies took shape in the vast grasslands of inner Eurasia, sub-Saharan Africa, Arabian and Saharan deserts, subarctic Northern Hemisphere regions, and the high plateau of Tibet.
• The Afro-Eurasian world saw the greatest impact from Pastoralists, and only in the Andes did llamas and alpacas allow for some pastoralism.
• Pastoral societies generally had less productive economies with a need for large grazing areas.
• People lived in small, scattered encampments or seasonal settlements of related kinfolk rather than villages, towns, and cities.
• Pastoral peoples organized themselves in kinship-based groups or clans claiming common ancestry through the male line, and related clans come together as a tribe.
• Pastoral peoples generally offered women a higher status, fewer restrictions, and a greater role in public life than their agricultural counterparts.
• Women were involved in productive labor, domestic responsibilities, and care of smaller animals, and Mongol women could initiate divorce.
• Mongol women frequently served as political advisers and were active in military affairs.
• The most characteristic feature of pastoral societies was their mobility, and pastoralists maintained seasonal settlements.
• Pastoralists shared a life based on turning grass into usable food and energy through their animals and were deeply connected to their agricultural neighbors.
• Periodic tribal confederations and states were created to deal more effectively with agricultural societies on their borders due to the desire for the fruits of civilization.
• Constructing a large state among pastoralists was challenging due to a lack of surplus wealth.
• Charismatic leaders were periodically able to unite tribal alliances and employed "fictive kinship" to designate allies as blood relatives.
• Pastoral states had certain military advantages in confronting larger civilizations as they could draw on horseback-riding and hunting skills from the entire male population.
• These states sustained themselves by extracting wealth through raiding, trading, or extortion from agricultural civilizations and rulers could maintain fragile alliances as long as wealth flowed in.
• Pastoralists interacted with agricultural neighbors culturally and became acquainted with universal religions at one time or another.
• Conversion was a top-down process as pastoral elites and rulers adopted a foreign religion for political purposes.
• The most fundamental contribution of pastoralists was their mastery of environments unsuitable for agriculture.
• As pastoral peoples of the Inner Asian steppes learned the art of horseback riding (by roughly 1000 B.C.E.), they could accumulate and tend larger herds and new technologies.
• New technologies invented or adapted by pastoral societies included complex horse harnesses, saddles with iron stirrups, a small compound bow, and various forms of armor and swords.
• The Xiongnu Empire was created in the third and second centuries B.C.E. and stretched from Manchuria deep into Central Asia.
• It was during the era of third-wave civilizations (500-1500) that pastoral peoples created the largest and most influential empires and Islam derived from a largely pastoral people
• The Arabs, and later carried by the Turks. Most of the great civilizations of outer Eurasia came under the control of previously pastoral peoples.
• Pastoralist Arabs developed a reliable camel saddle that enabled them to fight effectively from atop their beasts and control trade.

Almoravid Empire

• Camel pastoralists served as the shock troops of Islamic expansion with intellectual and political leadership from urban merchants.
• This pastoralist creation became the foundation for a distinctive civilization.
• Turkic-speaking pastoralists migrated from Mongolia and southern Siberia and entered the historical record as creators of empires.
• Turkic states confronted civilizations to their south; Turkic language and culture spread widely over much of Inner Asia and entered agrarian civilizations.
• Conversion to Islam between the 10th and 14th centuries and launched the Turks into a new role as the third major carrier of Islam.
• In the Seljuk Turkic Empire the Turkic rulers claimed the Muslim title of sultan.
• The Turkic peoples carried Islam to new areas and solidly planted Islam in northern India while in Anatolia, Islam brought a massive infusion of Turkic culture.
• All across northern Africa and the Sahara, the introduction of the camel gave rise to pastoral societies.
• In the eleventh century C.E., The Almoravid Empire was a reform movement arose among the Sanhaja Berber pastoralists living in the western Sahara.
• The movement, led by Ibn Yasin, incorporated part of northwestern Africa and crossed into southern Spain.

The Mongol Empire Breakout

• The Mongols made the most stunning entry and their 13th-century breakout gave rise to the largest land-based empire.
• The Empire joined the inner Eurasian steppes with the settled agricultural civilizations of outer Eurasia more than ever before and brought the major civilizations into direct contact.
• The Mongol left a surprisingly modest cultural imprint, and unlike the Arabs, bequeathed no new language, religion, or civilization for converts conquerors and conquered alike.
• The Mongols also failed to spread their religion and the Mongols uninterested in religious imperialism.
• Mongol culture remained confined to Mongolia and the Mongol Empire proved to be "the last, spectacular bloom of pastoral power in Inner Eurasia".

Temujin to Chinggis Khan

• Focusing on the role of the individual- Temujin (1162-1227), later known as Chinggis Khan (universal ruler) scholars have been forces to look closely at.
• In 1206, a Mongol tribal assembly recognized Temujin as Chinggis Khan and In 1209, the first major attack on the settled agricultural societies set in motion half of a century of Mongol world war to bring massive deaths.
• Chinggis Khan, created an empire that contained China, Korea, Central Asia, Russia, and a huge part of Europe to the east.

A Mongol Failure

• Setbacks marked the outer limits of the Mongol Empire, including the Mongols' withdrawal from Eastern Europe (1242) and their defeat at Ain Jalut in Palestine.
• To make up for their small population, the Mongols added huge numbers of conquered peoples into their military forces and made that conquering peoples serve as laborers.
• A further element in the military effectiveness of Mongol forces lay in a reputation for a ruthless brutality; the Mongols said whoever did not submit would be destroyed so that all would be scared.

Mongolian Society

• Underlying the purely military was impressive methods ability to both mobilize humans and empire and the began Census taking.
• They had many methods of administrations and Mongol economic and religious policies gave some benefits and a subordinate place empire for its conquering peoples.

Encountering the Mongols

• Differences among civilizations ensured considerable diversity as this encounter unfolded across a vast realm.
• That accommodation took many forms- The Mongols gave themselves a Chinese dynastic, yuan that was transfered their capital from Karakorum in Mongolia to now Beijing which was given the name Khanbailik.