Earlier today (11 May), the National Museum of Mongolia held a special meeting dedicated to one of the most famous artifacts in the nation’s history – the Chinggis Khaan stone. Discovered near the Russian town of Nerchinsk, located to the north of Mongolia,, the ancient stele, was first mentioned  in 1818 by G. I. Spasskii, a specialist in Siberian studies. In an article in the ‘Sibirskii Vestnik’ (Siberian Herald), Spasskii described the stone ‘with oriental inscriptions’.

The inscription on the stele is the most ancient known example of the Mongolian Uyguhur script, known, subsequently, as the Chinggis Khan’s stone script. This is the script which is used today alongside Cyrillic. The inscription is dedicated to Esunge, the son of Chinggis Khaan’s brother Khasar, although it begins with the name of Chinggis Khaan himself.

One interpretation of this inscription could be as follows: ‘While Chinggis Khan was holding an assembly of Mongolian dignitaries, after his conquest of Sartaul (East Turkestan), Esungge shot a target at 335 alds’ (536m).

According to Spasskii, the exact location of the discovery of the stone stele was in the basin of the river Kharkhiraa which is the left tributary of Urlengui river flowing into the river Erdene in the Russia’s Trans Baikal region.

In 1832 the stele was taken from Nerchinsk to St. Petersburg, where it is still on display in the State Hermitage Museum. Mongolia has its duplicate.

There is no certainty about the exact time the carving on the stone was made, but scholars have reached a general consensus that it was written about 1226, in other words, just before the death of Chinggis Khaan in 1227.