A Mongolian-German project is investigating abandoned early modern military and monastic sites in central Mongolia, including how the ruins of these urban nodes continue to shape cultural memory within nomadic society. Initial excavations have revealed a previously unknown site type, interpreted as garrisons from the period of Manchu rule (AD 1636–1911).

Introduction

In Mongolia, cities have been an integral part of nomadic society for more than a millennium. Abandoned urban sites from various periods dot the land, inscribing memories of lost empires and alliances into the cultural landscape. The relationship between sedentary urban and mobile herder lifeways has constituted a key cultural, economic and political factor in one of Eurasia's major pastoralist formations (Bruun & Narangoa Reference Bruun and Narangoa2006). This history is most prominently present in the Orkhon Valley, which preserves traces of various urban centres that include Karakorum, the capital of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries AD (Rogers et al. Reference Rogers, Erdenebat and Gallon2005). Much less is known about the period of the Qing Dynasty (1636–1911), when Mongolia had fallen under Manchu dominance. This is the era in which most modern Mongolian cities are rooted, but subsequent political developments led to the abandonment or destruction of many of these urban sites.

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