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The Secret in the Steppes Thought Safe for All Time
A portrait of Genghis Khan in the Mongolian Embassy in Beijing. The conqueror was buried in 1227 without any grave marker.
(By Ng Han Guan -- Associated Press)
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The mystery has remained intact over the years in large measure because Mongolians want it that way. Many of the country's 2.8 million inhabitants have clung to the ancient belief that it would be sacrilegious to dig up anyone's tomb, much less Genghis Khan's. In addition, to avoid any nationalist-based opposition, Soviet bureaucrats who ran Mongolia for most of the 20th century closed off the area where the tomb was most likely to be found -- the same area that interests Kravitz today -- fueling the mystique.
More recently, a Japanese-organized expedition to find the tomb was closed down after three years in the early 1990s after popular resentment built up on fears that Japanese scientists planned to dig up Genghis Khan's remains if they found them.
The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science has instituted regulations requiring a permit for any digs to ensure their legitimacy. But Bira, who has worked with Kravitz, said many Mongolians, officials as well as average citizens, were also uneasy when the Americans began digging. "We had to do a lot of work with people," Bira said. "I told them we were not going to disturb Genghis Khan's tomb," adding that he wanted only to identify the burial location.
Bira said the ministry requires evidence of serious purpose before granting the permit, and academic archaeologists have accompanied the expeditions organized by Kravitz. But provincial officials near the site have understood the tourism potential if the walled area does turn out to be Genghis Khan's burial site, he said, and businessmen are already thinking about organizing tours.
For many Mongolians, however, there is still something vaguely wrong about digging around in a place that has potentially held its secret for 800 years. Traditional families to this day hold funerals in strict intimacy, sometimes in the hours just before dawn to avoid notice, and many believe disturbing Genghis Khan could bring bad luck.
"Oh, you hear these rumors from time to time," said a skeptical Foreign Ministry official, Luuzan Gotovdorjiin, when asked whether the Kravitz dig is on to something. "But I have my doubts. Genghis Khan is Genghis Khan."
Researcher Robert Thomason in Washington contributed to this report.
