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Thats interesting! How come the mongols built buddhist temples near iran then after conquering them ?
I read that somewhere
1 in 200 men direct descendants of Genghis Khan
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The Mongols who conquered Iran (il-Khanid dynasty) adopted Buddhism after the conquest. Hulagu Khan, who founded the dynasty, was himself a shamanist. State patronage of Buddhism made the Mongols very unpopular in Iran so eventually they made Islam the state religion again, and persecuted the same Buddhists that they previously patronized.Thats interesting! How come the mongols built buddhist temples near iran then after conquering them ?
I read that somewhere
LETHALFORCE
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Genghis Khan's descendants inherit ancient instrument - Xinhua | English.news.cn
Genghis Khan's descendants inherit ancient instrument
ALTAY, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A group of Chinese who consider themselves to be descendants of Genghis Khan have dedicated themselves to preserving the chuer, an ancient flute that comes from the very mountains they call home.
The group of Chinese Tunivians, an ethnic group originating from Mongolia, live near Kanas Lake, a body of water located near the Altay Mountains in northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The area's picturesque mountains and rivers have served to inspire chuer players in history, with many describing the flute's sound as mimicking sounds in nature.
"The way my dad played sounded like the mountains and water here, especially the song 'Altay Mountains.' It was so beautiful that you could almost see the outline of the mountains," said Mengkeyi, a budding chuer player who was inspired to take up the instrument after the death of his father Erdeshi.
The chuer is a lightweight wind instrument made out of lovage, a perennial plant that is plentiful in the area. It has only three holes, but produces a variety of sounds, depending on players' skills.
The flutes are created in accordance with sizes of players' hands; therefore, no two chuers or chuer players sound or play alike, Mengkeyi's younger brother Daxi said.
"The plants used to make chuer only grow here. Each autumn, we go to the mountains to find suitable lovage stalks. The ones that grow in the mountains are better than those growing at their base. Thin ones are better than thick ones. Roughly one out of every 10 stalks can turn a good chuer," Mengkeyi said.
The instrument is incredibly difficult to learn to play.
"Many people cannot make any sound with the chuer. I was one of them. I made no sound at all for my first three days of training," said Daxi, who was interviewing local elderly for a purpose of collecting information about the instrument to pass on to others.
"Playing the chuer is truly a difficult job. Our father started learning at nine years old but could not make any sound until he was 13. I wasn't able to make any sound until I was a teenager, too. Many quit after seeing it impossible," Mengkeyi said.
As difficult as it is to learn, the brothers and fellow players are dedicated to maintaining the legacy, as it is tied to not only their culture, but also livelihood.
"We used to live on hunting. Animals would stop and listen to the chuer, offering us time to get them," Daxi said. Although the family no longer depend on hunting for food, the skins they take from foxes, wolves and minks are used to decorate a guest room for visitors.
"The instrument comes from, describes and attracts nature," Daxi said.
Songs written for the chuer are not preserved on any score, but are passed on from one generation to another, each adding a unique flavor to the tune.
"I can play my father's songs 'Altay Mountain' and 'Kanas Lake Water,' although a bit differently," Mengkeyi said.
The father Erdeshi became a living part of the country's intangible cultural heritage by learning to play 18 songs on the chuer, the most of any player. But his sons did not learn many of the songs.
"I can play five of them. Others can only be learned from recordings and memories. But my father's songs are carved in my mind," Mengkeyi said. He tried to write his own songs, and completed two thus far. "It's too difficult. I have to write them little by little," he said.
However, Mengkeyi has little worry about the instrument's future.
"Many people come here to learn how to play. Some are professional musicians, others are local residents," Mengkeyi said.
"My 4-year-old son is very interested in the chuer. I will teach him one day," he said.
A local villager named Dielike has spent the last four years under Mengkeyi's tutoring, learning to play two songs.
"It is quite difficult. I am very talented, but still find it hard. I'm not good enough yet," Dielike said.
Dielike has been content to entertain tourists by presenting local music and dance, but he is looking to expand his reach. He has established a band Marmot that he hopes to bring ethnic music out of villages.
"I plans to travel to Beijing this winter and introduce my band at a few TV shows," he said. "I want to bring this music out of the valley and into the rest of the world."
Genghis Khan's descendants inherit ancient instrument
ALTAY, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A group of Chinese who consider themselves to be descendants of Genghis Khan have dedicated themselves to preserving the chuer, an ancient flute that comes from the very mountains they call home.
The group of Chinese Tunivians, an ethnic group originating from Mongolia, live near Kanas Lake, a body of water located near the Altay Mountains in northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The area's picturesque mountains and rivers have served to inspire chuer players in history, with many describing the flute's sound as mimicking sounds in nature.
"The way my dad played sounded like the mountains and water here, especially the song 'Altay Mountains.' It was so beautiful that you could almost see the outline of the mountains," said Mengkeyi, a budding chuer player who was inspired to take up the instrument after the death of his father Erdeshi.
The chuer is a lightweight wind instrument made out of lovage, a perennial plant that is plentiful in the area. It has only three holes, but produces a variety of sounds, depending on players' skills.
The flutes are created in accordance with sizes of players' hands; therefore, no two chuers or chuer players sound or play alike, Mengkeyi's younger brother Daxi said.
"The plants used to make chuer only grow here. Each autumn, we go to the mountains to find suitable lovage stalks. The ones that grow in the mountains are better than those growing at their base. Thin ones are better than thick ones. Roughly one out of every 10 stalks can turn a good chuer," Mengkeyi said.
The instrument is incredibly difficult to learn to play.
"Many people cannot make any sound with the chuer. I was one of them. I made no sound at all for my first three days of training," said Daxi, who was interviewing local elderly for a purpose of collecting information about the instrument to pass on to others.
"Playing the chuer is truly a difficult job. Our father started learning at nine years old but could not make any sound until he was 13. I wasn't able to make any sound until I was a teenager, too. Many quit after seeing it impossible," Mengkeyi said.
As difficult as it is to learn, the brothers and fellow players are dedicated to maintaining the legacy, as it is tied to not only their culture, but also livelihood.
"We used to live on hunting. Animals would stop and listen to the chuer, offering us time to get them," Daxi said. Although the family no longer depend on hunting for food, the skins they take from foxes, wolves and minks are used to decorate a guest room for visitors.
"The instrument comes from, describes and attracts nature," Daxi said.
Songs written for the chuer are not preserved on any score, but are passed on from one generation to another, each adding a unique flavor to the tune.
"I can play my father's songs 'Altay Mountain' and 'Kanas Lake Water,' although a bit differently," Mengkeyi said.
The father Erdeshi became a living part of the country's intangible cultural heritage by learning to play 18 songs on the chuer, the most of any player. But his sons did not learn many of the songs.
"I can play five of them. Others can only be learned from recordings and memories. But my father's songs are carved in my mind," Mengkeyi said. He tried to write his own songs, and completed two thus far. "It's too difficult. I have to write them little by little," he said.
However, Mengkeyi has little worry about the instrument's future.
"Many people come here to learn how to play. Some are professional musicians, others are local residents," Mengkeyi said.
"My 4-year-old son is very interested in the chuer. I will teach him one day," he said.
A local villager named Dielike has spent the last four years under Mengkeyi's tutoring, learning to play two songs.
"It is quite difficult. I am very talented, but still find it hard. I'm not good enough yet," Dielike said.
Dielike has been content to entertain tourists by presenting local music and dance, but he is looking to expand his reach. He has established a band Marmot that he hopes to bring ethnic music out of villages.
"I plans to travel to Beijing this winter and introduce my band at a few TV shows," he said. "I want to bring this music out of the valley and into the rest of the world."
LETHALFORCE
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The Mongols were the last roar of a dying era. History is full of empires forged by mighty nomadic horsemen: the Scythians/Sakas, Kushans, Huns, Parthians, Avars, Magyars, Turks, etc. The Mongols and their immediate descendants (e.g. Timurids) would be the last in this line of cavalry empires. Starting in the 16th century, military technology (especially the advent of gunpowder) began favoring infantry over cavalry, so that sedentary agricultural societies were no longer at the mercy of steppe nomads. The successful Russian campaigns against the Mongols starting under Ivan the Great, and the colonization of the steppes by Russian agriculturalists marked the beginning of the end of this era.
LETHALFORCE
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How did Mongols breach the great wall of China??
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Genghis Khan hired Chinese and Muslim engineers to build artillery for him, which he used to breach Chinese fortifications.
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puhahaha! caliphate conquered by a shaman....
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The Dzunghars were the last Empire of the Steppes.
Bhadra
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We should hire Pakistanies to infiltrate and capture Pakistani peaks across Kargil?
No.... ah we can do that.
LETHALFORCE
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Why Genghis Khan won't have had 16 million descendants. | Club Troppo
Why Genghis Khan won't have had 16 million descendants.
Last Thursday, I posed the mystery of whether there are in fact 16 million direct male descendants of Genghis Khan. This factoid came from a 2003 study of some 2000 Central Asian men, of which 8% were found to share a common male ancestor around the year 1000 AD, give or take a century.
The adherents of this factoid basically point out what a stud Genghis Khan and his sons were. He had many wives himself and some of his sons and grandsons shagged everything they could lay their hands on in the territories conquered by the Golden Horde led by his grandson Batu Khan. Some of them, like Kublai Khan, would easily have had hundreds of sons and Genghis himself probably had dozens.
The first hint of doubt that you should have is this whole business of the direct male line and what that implies: if you believe that 8% currently is directly from Genghis then you by implication believe they were not by his 3 brothers and 2 half-brothers, who also were high-up in the Mongol hierarchy. You by implication believe they were not by the many uncles on his father side, nor indeed from any of the Mongol men who will have had the same male ancestor as Genghis Khan earlier in the line. You see, the Y-Chromosome attributable to Genghis is close to the one of his own father, his grandfather, his great grandfather, etc. You basically have to believe that there are relatively large and unusual genetic differences between his Y-chromosome and that of all the other male offspring of his own male ancestors to pick him as the sole source. Only then could you say the 8% were his and not the result of himself and a whole group of male Mongols who shared a very similar Y-chromosome of an earlier male ancestor. Just on the genetic side, the odds of such a thing are pretty slim already.
Consider how many male Mongols you would thus have to 'wish away': Genghis came from an important family. Up his family tree were prolific male shaggers. What are the odds then that the contribution all the other men coming from the same male line would be outside the 8%? Miniscule, absolutely miniscule.
Consider further how little Genghis could actually himself have done during the conquest of the Khwarezmian Empire around 1219. Yes, he apparently reserved the most beautiful women for himself. But he led an army of up to 250,000 men, all raping and siring as well. Now, I don't care what kind of super-stud Genghis was and how often he got first dibs on the prettiest women: he will not have been able to out-shag his fellow conquerors by much more than a factor of 10 (at best). Yes, he will have had many more women, but he will have had them once, whereas all his commanders and soldiers would have taken wives and concubines and looked after them for years, protecting the sons that came from those unions.
Consider moreover how the male descendants of Genghis would have been treated. Certainly his official sons had great status and protection. But any son he bore as a result of rape or one-night arrangements will have subsequently stood out like a sore thumb: the women would go back to their families and get other men who would not have looked kindly upon raising the son of someone else. You can be sure that many an illegitimate son of Genghis would have met an unfortunate and untimely death. It thus seems very likely that all the 'illegitimate' sons of Genghis would have had much less further genetic success than the average male in that time. The same goes for all the other illegitimate children of the recognised direct off-spring of Genghis.
It is this aspect of no special treatment for all but the recognised off-spring of Genghis that is crucial: the average male around at that time has 10 to 20 living male ancestors now. In order to get a higher success rate one needs some real advantage. For Genghis to have had 16 million if all the illegitimate ones had no special procreation advantage (and quite likely a big disadvantage) truly means that he and his recognised male offspring must have personally sired close to a million sons in that era. That is just beyond all reason. Even if 5 generations of his official descendants shagged themselves silly day and night, they couldn't get close to that kind of number.
The only remaining possibility would then be that there was something special about Genghis' chromosomes giving him and all his male descendants a true advantage in terms of procreation, even if they were illegitimate and had no help in terms of wealth or position at the start of life. That would not only imply that the current human race has supermen amongst it with some advantage that one should be able to measure, but in order to attribute them to just Genghis you then still need to believe this distinct true advantage was due to a mutation when the Y-chromosome was copied from Genghis' father to Genghis himself. Very, very far fetched.
Put all this together and think of what happened in that time: up to 250,000 men raiding through Central Asia, making examples out of whole cities by slaughtering everyone and occupying huge territories with a population in the tens of millions. To the victor the spoils, with all the desirable young women married to or raped by the Mongols and their allies, of which Genghis Khan was but a single man. And the other men in the region of course were not all dead either, so it is not just the other 250,000 that vie for the 8% supposedly starting with Genghis. Various other waves of conquerors have swept through the region since.
What are the odds that Genghis Khan and his direct male descendants then managed a whole 8% for themselves? Or even Genghis Khan and his 10 closets male relatives? I would say pretty slim. What, on the other hand, are the odds of a fairly large slice of the Mongol horde managing 8% for themselves as a block of men? Pretty good, you would have to say.
What does this mean? Well, it means that the common male ancestor of whom 8% of all East Asian men derive is most likely not Genghis Khan but rather a male ancestor further up in his male line and the male line of a whole slice of Mongol men. Some guy living around the year 1000 or even earlier who will, by the time of the Khwarezmian Empire and the Golden Horde that swept through East Asia, had hundreds or thousands of male descendants in prominent places in the Mongol genetic pool, poised to take advantage of the raping and other female-acquiring possibilities that came with that massive conquest.
You should hence not be surprised to know that after writing this I was alerted by my research assistant Miriam Carter to two genetic studies doubting the 8% number, though purely on the basis of genetics. A 2012 study by Russian geneticists suggests the direct male descendants of Genghis Khan have all but died out (which I don't believe either). Perhaps more importantly, another study (Abilev et al. in Human Biology 2012) attributes the 16 million to a whole tribe currently living in Kazachstan, the Kerey, who functioned as elite units in the Mongol armies and were indeed exceedingly well poised to spread their genes around during the Mongol conquests. That tribe and the Khan family were close so it is possible that the earlier male ancestor spawned both the males from the Khan family and much of the Kerey.
One has to wonder whether the authors of the original study were fully aware of how unlikely it was that Genghis Khan was really the direct male ancestor of the 8%. After all, they labelled their study 'The Genetic Legacy of the Mongols' and not 'The genetic legacy of Genghis Khan'. In their study they are furthermore quite careful to acknowledge that their best-guess for the period in which the common male ancestor lived was the year 1000, not the year 1200 which was when Genghis Khan was still around. He is on the outer fringes of their confidence bands. Yet, the authors do say explicitly that Genghis Khan fits the bill for the kind of person they are looking for and it is that what was taken up by the world's media. The factoid that went into the world media certainly helped to get more attention for their study. It made their careers.
So, once again champagne for the many who had similar doubts. Diet water for the rest.
Why Genghis Khan won't have had 16 million descendants.
Last Thursday, I posed the mystery of whether there are in fact 16 million direct male descendants of Genghis Khan. This factoid came from a 2003 study of some 2000 Central Asian men, of which 8% were found to share a common male ancestor around the year 1000 AD, give or take a century.
The adherents of this factoid basically point out what a stud Genghis Khan and his sons were. He had many wives himself and some of his sons and grandsons shagged everything they could lay their hands on in the territories conquered by the Golden Horde led by his grandson Batu Khan. Some of them, like Kublai Khan, would easily have had hundreds of sons and Genghis himself probably had dozens.
The first hint of doubt that you should have is this whole business of the direct male line and what that implies: if you believe that 8% currently is directly from Genghis then you by implication believe they were not by his 3 brothers and 2 half-brothers, who also were high-up in the Mongol hierarchy. You by implication believe they were not by the many uncles on his father side, nor indeed from any of the Mongol men who will have had the same male ancestor as Genghis Khan earlier in the line. You see, the Y-Chromosome attributable to Genghis is close to the one of his own father, his grandfather, his great grandfather, etc. You basically have to believe that there are relatively large and unusual genetic differences between his Y-chromosome and that of all the other male offspring of his own male ancestors to pick him as the sole source. Only then could you say the 8% were his and not the result of himself and a whole group of male Mongols who shared a very similar Y-chromosome of an earlier male ancestor. Just on the genetic side, the odds of such a thing are pretty slim already.
Consider how many male Mongols you would thus have to 'wish away': Genghis came from an important family. Up his family tree were prolific male shaggers. What are the odds then that the contribution all the other men coming from the same male line would be outside the 8%? Miniscule, absolutely miniscule.
Consider further how little Genghis could actually himself have done during the conquest of the Khwarezmian Empire around 1219. Yes, he apparently reserved the most beautiful women for himself. But he led an army of up to 250,000 men, all raping and siring as well. Now, I don't care what kind of super-stud Genghis was and how often he got first dibs on the prettiest women: he will not have been able to out-shag his fellow conquerors by much more than a factor of 10 (at best). Yes, he will have had many more women, but he will have had them once, whereas all his commanders and soldiers would have taken wives and concubines and looked after them for years, protecting the sons that came from those unions.
Consider moreover how the male descendants of Genghis would have been treated. Certainly his official sons had great status and protection. But any son he bore as a result of rape or one-night arrangements will have subsequently stood out like a sore thumb: the women would go back to their families and get other men who would not have looked kindly upon raising the son of someone else. You can be sure that many an illegitimate son of Genghis would have met an unfortunate and untimely death. It thus seems very likely that all the 'illegitimate' sons of Genghis would have had much less further genetic success than the average male in that time. The same goes for all the other illegitimate children of the recognised direct off-spring of Genghis.
It is this aspect of no special treatment for all but the recognised off-spring of Genghis that is crucial: the average male around at that time has 10 to 20 living male ancestors now. In order to get a higher success rate one needs some real advantage. For Genghis to have had 16 million if all the illegitimate ones had no special procreation advantage (and quite likely a big disadvantage) truly means that he and his recognised male offspring must have personally sired close to a million sons in that era. That is just beyond all reason. Even if 5 generations of his official descendants shagged themselves silly day and night, they couldn't get close to that kind of number.
The only remaining possibility would then be that there was something special about Genghis' chromosomes giving him and all his male descendants a true advantage in terms of procreation, even if they were illegitimate and had no help in terms of wealth or position at the start of life. That would not only imply that the current human race has supermen amongst it with some advantage that one should be able to measure, but in order to attribute them to just Genghis you then still need to believe this distinct true advantage was due to a mutation when the Y-chromosome was copied from Genghis' father to Genghis himself. Very, very far fetched.
Put all this together and think of what happened in that time: up to 250,000 men raiding through Central Asia, making examples out of whole cities by slaughtering everyone and occupying huge territories with a population in the tens of millions. To the victor the spoils, with all the desirable young women married to or raped by the Mongols and their allies, of which Genghis Khan was but a single man. And the other men in the region of course were not all dead either, so it is not just the other 250,000 that vie for the 8% supposedly starting with Genghis. Various other waves of conquerors have swept through the region since.
What are the odds that Genghis Khan and his direct male descendants then managed a whole 8% for themselves? Or even Genghis Khan and his 10 closets male relatives? I would say pretty slim. What, on the other hand, are the odds of a fairly large slice of the Mongol horde managing 8% for themselves as a block of men? Pretty good, you would have to say.
What does this mean? Well, it means that the common male ancestor of whom 8% of all East Asian men derive is most likely not Genghis Khan but rather a male ancestor further up in his male line and the male line of a whole slice of Mongol men. Some guy living around the year 1000 or even earlier who will, by the time of the Khwarezmian Empire and the Golden Horde that swept through East Asia, had hundreds or thousands of male descendants in prominent places in the Mongol genetic pool, poised to take advantage of the raping and other female-acquiring possibilities that came with that massive conquest.
You should hence not be surprised to know that after writing this I was alerted by my research assistant Miriam Carter to two genetic studies doubting the 8% number, though purely on the basis of genetics. A 2012 study by Russian geneticists suggests the direct male descendants of Genghis Khan have all but died out (which I don't believe either). Perhaps more importantly, another study (Abilev et al. in Human Biology 2012) attributes the 16 million to a whole tribe currently living in Kazachstan, the Kerey, who functioned as elite units in the Mongol armies and were indeed exceedingly well poised to spread their genes around during the Mongol conquests. That tribe and the Khan family were close so it is possible that the earlier male ancestor spawned both the males from the Khan family and much of the Kerey.
One has to wonder whether the authors of the original study were fully aware of how unlikely it was that Genghis Khan was really the direct male ancestor of the 8%. After all, they labelled their study 'The Genetic Legacy of the Mongols' and not 'The genetic legacy of Genghis Khan'. In their study they are furthermore quite careful to acknowledge that their best-guess for the period in which the common male ancestor lived was the year 1000, not the year 1200 which was when Genghis Khan was still around. He is on the outer fringes of their confidence bands. Yet, the authors do say explicitly that Genghis Khan fits the bill for the kind of person they are looking for and it is that what was taken up by the world's media. The factoid that went into the world media certainly helped to get more attention for their study. It made their careers.
So, once again champagne for the many who had similar doubts. Diet water for the rest.
LETHALFORCE
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The individual/ group/species who are most successful in spreading their DNA are usually dominant
in animals and Humans. In many animals the new dominant male kills off all the old males offsprings
and creates his own offsprings with all the females.
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this map certainly confirms that Pakistan was never a part of india.
LETHALFORCE
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Where I don't see Pakistan written anywhere on the map?
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If anything it can show that Hindukush and Himalayas form the boundary of the subcontinent.
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except the small part of punjab region.
the rest of pakistan fall under the genghis khan empire
the rest of pakistan fall under the genghis khan empire
LETHALFORCE
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So Afghanistan was part of India??
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That small region is like half your territory.
