THROUGH STEPPE TO KARAKORUM. TRAVELLING IN THE MONGOL EMPIRE

• Authors: Holeščák Michal
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Mongol Empire and its warriors swept through the Eurasian steppe belt from the east to the west, establishing a vast empire stretching through the big part of Eurasian continent. This vast distance was traversed by many individuals, from soldiers, messengers and merchants to foreign ambassadors, trying to contact the most powerful political player in the region. From the written sources of these foreign visitors and the local sources and chronicles, we get the image of how the everyday travel was organized, consisting of the line of stations that served to exchange horses and provide food and accommodation, established in a firm way by the Great Khan Ögedei. From the western sources, mainly the two travellers, John of Plano Carpini and William of Rubruck, who left their narrative notes on their travel in written form, it is possible to see the development and evolution of this system. Both travellers got to Karakorum, passing nearly the whole Eurasian Steppe belt, stretching from the Lower Danube to the Mongolian plane and gave the description of an everyday life on the road, the specific ways of transportation but also characteristics of the horse, their look and behaviour, as well as riding equipment used by the Mongols, that can be traced in the archaeological sources from this region.

Keywords

EN

MONGOL EMPIRE; TRAVEL; HORSE; RIDING EQUIPMENT; EURASIAN STEPPE; KARAKORUM

• Publisher: Slovak Academy of Sciences, Archaeological Institute
• Journal: Slovenská archeológia (Slovak Archaeology)
• Year: 2023
• Volume: 71
• Issue: suppl. 3
• Pages: 279 – 286

Contributors

author

Holeščák Michal

• Archeologický ústav SAV, v. v. i., Akademická 2, 949 21 Nitra, Slovak Republic

• https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3951-2516

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31577/slovarch.2023.suppl.3.20