ULAANBAATAR, MONGOLIA—According to a Phys.org report, an international team of researchers led by Amartuvshin Chunag of the National University of Mongolia was investigating the site of a medieval fortress in northeastern Mongolia when they were surprised to find the grave of an elite woman in its walls. The fortress of Khar Nuur was part of a system of walls and fortresses that spanned nearly 2,500 miles. Radiocarbon dating of the burial indicates that it dates to between A.D. 1158 and 1214, after the fortress had been abandoned, and likely between the fall of the Khitan or Liao Empire in A.D. 1125 and the rise of the Mongolian Empire in A.D. 1206. The researchers explained that the burial is one of only 25 graves dated to this period that have been found in Mongolia. The woman was between the ages of 40 and 60 at the time of death, and she was dressed in a yellow silk robe and headdress made of materials likely imported from China. Her coffin, made of non-local wood, also contained gold earrings, a silver cup, a bronze vessel, a gold bracelet, and coral and glass beads. “The grave we found was not marked above the surface, so perhaps this was the norm during this period, and therefore fewer graves have been identified and excavated,” Gideon Shelach-Lavi of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem postulated. The woman may have been buried within the walls of the fort as a symbol of prestige, or as a way for her local community to strengthen their hold over the territory, he added. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Archaeological Research in Asia. To read about a gyrfalcon skeleton likely buried in central Mongolia during this same period, go to "Turn of the Millennium Falcon."
