The art and culture of Mongolia (100 B.C.-19th century)

The first room (367) presents the celebrated group of relics, comprising clothes, fabrics and household objects, from the tumuli of Noin-Ula in the northern part of Mongolia, investigated by Kozlov.

The tumuli were the burial places of Hun chiefs, the Huns having formed at the end of the third century B.C. a vast nomadic empire, which included the lands of Mongolia, western China, and part of Central Asia. The Hun tumuli at Noin-Ula date from the beginning of the Christian era. Room 366 is devoted entirely to items belonging to the time of Jenghiz-Khan’s empire; what attracts most interest here is the “Jenghiz Stone”, an ancient relic of Mongolian writing. It is a granite stele with a text and was erected in 1225 at the order of Jenghiz in honour of his nephew Isunke. Of further interest are some architectural details – stone dragon statues and roof from a thirteenh – fourteenth century palace belonging to a relative of Jenghiz-Khan. The ruins of the palace, situated five kilometres from the village of Konduy in the region of Chita, were excavated in 1957 by a joint expedition of scholars from the USSR and the Mongolian People’s Republic. In the third room (365) there are examples of the Mongolian art of the sixteenth to nineteenth century – painting, sculpture and craft work.