Multiethnic Mongolia centre of the world

The Franciscan friar William of Rubruck (circa 1220-1293) in his Itinerarium, which recounts his journey to Mongolia in 1254, recalls, amidst infinite horizons and peoples with a thousand faces, that the Great Khan told him: 'As God has given each hand many fingers, so he has given men many paths'. They are the infinite paths of the steppe, they are the many religions promoted and accepted by the Mongols, they are the languages and alphabets that mix and mingle in that land that we call Mongolia, too generically, and about which so many commonplaces have grown. That the exhibition "Mongolia. A journey through time' currently underway at the Rietberg Museum in Zurich intelligently dismantles with a wealth of precious artefacts that leave the borders of the Asian country for the first time and are the result of recent archaeological excavation campaigns. We often think of the Mongols as nomadic, barbaric peoples, dedicated only to war and pastoralism, with no great cities that have survived the passage of time. But this is not quite the case.

The Rietberg Museum is nestled in the Rieterpark overlooking Lake Zurich and its greenery is already a taste of Mongolia. Like the gher which, in the first room, marks the direction of the exhibition. There is something physical in this choice: the gher, a symbol of nomadism - it is dismantled and reassembled when pastures are scarce, up to three, four times a year -, here traces three roads towards three cities, which were large in ancient times and which today tell of a multilingual, multi-ethnic people, open to various religious and artistic instances, the result of trade and exchanges that cut across the Asian continent from East to West, from North to South. The journey through Mongolia's history and geography starts with the Xiongnu, who founded the oldest empire in the heart of Asia. In the centuries straddling the birth of Christ, they ruled from Korea to Central Asia and the Chinese - the only ones to mention them in the sources - blandished them with gifts and the policy of mixed marriages to contain their military might. But the Xiongnu were wealthy, as recent excavations in Longcheng, the 'City of the Dragon', show, and they were in contact with the world, from China to Bactrian, on the Aral Sea, to the Mediterranean: their tombs are spectacular and the fragment of a carpet from a noble burial site from the 3rd-2nd century BC bears witness to this. A procession of men towards an altar, some in profile, others in front, and above all butterflies, angels and geese embroidered in millimetric fashion. "International trade is the hallmark of the Xiongnu," explains one of the curators, Alexandra von Przychowski, "luxury objects travelled long distances, Roman glass arrived from the Black Sea, silk from China exchanged for iron for weapons, and also bronze mirrors, lacquered bowls, jade plates.

The other great city recounted in the exhibition is Karabalgasun, a metropolis in the Orkhon valley founded in 744 A.D., where the palace of the Uyghur empire has been excavated, dominating an area of ruins covering 44 square kilometres. Wealth, trade, everything speaks of a sumptuous empire, just look at the artefacts that emerged from the Tomb of Shoroon Bumbagar, excavated in 2011: on the entrance walls paintings of a white tiger and a green dragon, and above all clay figurines of men and women with Turkish or Chinese features, a mythical creature of a thousand colours guarding the burial chamber and a precious casket: "Inside were 40 pieces of Byzantine and Sassanid gold," continues the curator, "and the ashes of the deceased, whose name we do not know, but who must have been an aristocrat from the second Turkish empire with strong links to Chinese culture and with trade contacts with western Asia.

Horses and horsemen, diplomats and messengers rode and brought ideas, cultures and religions, anything but a barbaric, homeless Mongolia. The cities were sumptuous and today's democratic Mongolia, born from the ashes of decades of Soviet domination, is trying to find its roots. Which certainly were in Karakorum, the capital ordered by Genghis Khan in the Orkhon valley in the 13th century. Today, Karakorum is home to the immense monastery of Erdene Zuu, of which, however, little remains due to Soviet-era destruction. In ancient times, the city was home to up to 12,000 inhabitants in the midst of the nowhere, spread over 135 hectares, with impressive walls, paved streets, four gates, eleven temples, two mosques, a Christian church and a Buddhist temple. It was the centre of the empire that Genghis Khan had built in 1206 by uniting the nomadic peoples. Its authority was born with military successes and grew thanks to an efficient administration and postal service, thanks to security that protected trade and thanks to tolerance that, according to Marie Favereau, author of The Horde. How the Mongols Changed the World (Einaudi), is the hallmark of Genghis Khan's empire.

Chinese square coins and Mongolian round coins circulate, local handicrafts flourish and absorb styles from all over Asia, gunpowder is used to intimidate the enemy, and perhaps the most evocative showcase of the exhibition is the one housing the fragments found in the Turfan Oasis, in the Gansu region of northwest China, along the Silk Road. These are manuscripts dated between the 7th and 14th centuries, written in more than twenty languages and with different spellings: Genghis Khan knew how important it was to understand each other and hired translators for all the languages of his empire. There are fragments in Parthian and Middle Persian, Sanskrit and Old Turkic, Uyghur and Sogdian. This is the Mongolia of Genghis Khan and his successors: a patchwork of peoples, languages and religions that stood together when diversity could be far scarier than today. But the winner was power, the economic interest on whose altar it was possible to accept that William of Rubruck arrived at court to be welcomed with all honours.