Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Finding Genghis Khan's Tomb From Space

Posted by samzenpus on from the eye-in-the-sky dept.

rossgneumann writes Genghis Khan really, really didn't want anyone to know where he was buried. The soldiers escorting his body to its final resting place killed everyone they passed, killed the people who built the tomb, and then were killed themselves. An elegant solution to this problem bubbled up from two unlikely sources: a man described as a "modern day Indiana Jones" and amateur archaeologists.

24 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. ah the great ghengis khan burial by nimbius · · Score: 5, Funny

    As a scientist ive studied this for quite some time. the troops who buried him were themselves killed by troops who were also killed, but not before the troops who killed the troops who killed the villagers were themselves killed and yet another regiment was dispatched to kill the troops killing the troops killing the troops.. Now in 2014 as we all know most of asia spends its time restlessly murdering anyone who has so much as heard of the poor chap. Its why textbooks today refer to the man as Gengles Mc. Kringle and hes portrayed as a bloated hamster living somewhere in cleveland.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  2. History Channel by a-zarkon! · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My guess is that this effort will be wildly unsuccessful, but will be picked up by the History Channel and turned into at least one 12-episode season of reality tv. It will chronicle their mostly futile efforts culminating in a season finale of grand failure. Yes I am still bitter after I got sucked into an episode of "Oak Island." I knew better, I watched it anyway. I will never get that hour back.

    1. Re:History Channel by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yeah, History Channel has turned into a rather pathetic shell of its former self.

      It's aliens, ghosts, and various other bits of crap and conjecture.

      They should really stop calling themselves "History", and move onto "speculative fiction".

      History is facts and reality, most of the crap on History Channel is anything but.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:History Channel by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Oak Island is a real place, off the coast of Nova Scotia.

      It's long been rumored to have pirate treasure. There's a show about people looking to find it.

      Of course, it leads to a bunch of nutjobs with crazy theories, like it has for decades. But, History Channel is all about nutjobs with crazy theories these days.

      History Channel has become a joke with things like Ghost Hunters, Ancient Aliens, and enough crap to make you think they've jumped the shark and become a source you can no longer rely on for actual history.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    3. Re:History Channel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      An MIT guy figured out what is there. Its a ship, that sank into the swamp bow first. They used coconut fibers for seating of the rowers back then. Explains the "evenly spaced wood platforms" as well. I remember the show back in the 80s "In Search of" when Lenard Nimoy talked about it.

    4. Re:History Channel by Deadstick · · Score: 3, Informative

      To be honest, its former self was the Hitler Channel. You could scarcely watch three shows in a row without one, usually two, being about Hitler.

    5. Re:History Channel by peragrin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      To be fair the history channel only turned to crap I the last 3-4 years.
        Tic has been cheap from the beginning.

      The only Chanel that's worse is syfy which lost its science fiction audeince to wrestlers. You can even hear about Syfy channe executives talk about it not realizing they themselves are what screwed to pooch. I used to watch the soft channel regularly. Now it is hardly at all. Even the b rated scifi lame movies suck.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    6. Re:History Channel by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I happen to know a couple of people that are involved in Cable contract discussions. From what they tell me (and hey, they could be totally wrong but it does make sense) the industry generally thinks that Discovery networks (discovery channel) is soon going to get cut from a lot of networks, soon followed by A&E (History channel) because people are getting fed up with the price of the different tiers. Cable companies have to cut something and those 2 networks are nothing more than reality show dustbins. Just like Fox is losing networks left and right now because the fact of the matter is most people just want a "news channel" and CNN is just fine for that and doesn't have a giant group of people that hate them like Fox does. These networks have to drastically cut their price or improve their content or they're not going to get carried anymore.

      The companies themselves may be fine... they are making a lot of money in other things. Discovery holds patents on ebooks for some crazy reason. But the times of filling your entire channel with reality TV that costs you virtually nothing and has no depth is over. AMC has proven that even a small investment can have huge returns.

    7. Re:History Channel by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Oak Island? WTF is that?

      Admittedly it's been a few years since I had cable TV, but have they really fallen that far? Back when we got rid of cable, the History Channel was more like The WWII Channel.

      Oak Island is supposed to be a Mystery... and if you read many of the sensationalized accounts of it from many disreputable reporters that conveniently leave out certain facts about the place it sounds very intriguing. But the fact is, the place isn't a mystery at all.

      Some kid swam out to it and found a tree with a pulley hanging from a branch a long time ago. That bit is likely true. But then, a guy heard about it and went out there. He was a Free Mason. And now, I don't mean the ones that rule the world. I mean the real ones that are basically like the Shriners that ware funny hats, drive gocarts and throw candy to kids in parades, and more importantly absolutely love secrets, mysteries, puzzles and hidden treasure. It's their bread and butter. They also like to relate all these mysterious stories to non-members to try and get you to join. If you ever meet someone at a party that starts talking about the Free Masons, run away. They'er either not a Free Mason and a conspiracy nut... or they are a Free Mason and a conspiracy nut.

      Anyways, from that guy on, every single person to investigate or own the island was a free mason. Including Franklin Roosevelt! You cannot trust anything they say about the place. The crazy thing about free masons is that they are usually conspiracy nuts, and their conspiracies always involve their own club. Once you realize that every single person to investigate the island was a conspiracy theorist, and that you can't trust any of their accounts, it makes a lot more sense. I'm pretty sure every rumor about the free masons ruling the world was likely started by an actual Free Mason. Not only that, they do things to make themselves even more mysterious because they think that's cool. That rock kind of looks like a skull? Well, they'll report it as 100% a skull and they're pretty sure the shape of the eye sockets indicate it's a model of the first popes skull... clearly leading to some secret of the ages.

      Long story short, Oak Island is what happens when you take a couple dozen conspiracy nuts and let them dig in the same hole for over 200 years and give them lots of media attention. The only thing buried on that island is all hope that those men would ever have to face reality.

    8. Re:History Channel by aaron4801 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I remember when TLC would show various surgeries and walk the viewer through every step. All the gory details from cataracts procedures, breast reconstructions, and other voluntary operations. That was nearly 20 years ago, but it hasn't always been crap.

    9. Re:History Channel by preaction · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The problem with American TV is the average American

  3. Khan!!! by colordotmatrix · · Score: 5, Funny
    Just ask James T. Kirk!!!!

    :-)

  4. Follow the breadcrumbs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wouldn't the trail of dead bodies lead them straight to the tomb?

  5. His legacy is 2% by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 3, Informative

    In Mongolia, today, 2% of the Y-Chromosomes alive are Genghis Khan's.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:His legacy is 2% by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 4, Funny

      Says the man posting as AC so he doesn't get murdered by Khan's descendants.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    2. Re:His legacy is 2% by jbmartin6 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It is a lot more than that, the article only covers "direct" male descendants. i.e. son of son of son of son of son of son of son. If you were the son of one of his daughters you wouldn't count. So 17.5 million men should have the same last name as him, if he had one. Maybe someone else can do the math, I wonder what the number would be if you accounted for females, and how that would compare to any other person from the same time period.

      --
      This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
    3. Re:His legacy is 2% by myowntrueself · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's not like Khan was his family name and people called him Mr. Khan.

      Mongolians don't have 'family names'.

      These days they use the 'patronymic' system which was introduced by the Russians, so you have your given name and your fathers given name. Typically the fathers given name is put first, so if your dad was Dave and you are Bob your FULL name would be Dave Bob.

      Before the Russian influence Mongolians had their tribal name and their given name but this was 'phased out' by the communists. Until relatively recently no one used their tribal names and many Mongolians forgot them. Even today employers don't record peoples tribal name and its hardly ever used. It appears on birth certificates but not in passports; a modern Mongolian passport will have the fathers given name in the 'surname' field.

      This can cause issues for mixed marriages and international travel with children as the name on the childs passport would make little sense to immigration officials in other countries and they might assume that the foreign father travelling with his child isn't the real father and that theres something fishy going on. (ie your name is Dave Smith, your sons name is Bobby. Normally his passport would have his name as "Bobby Smith", but if he was born in Mongolia his passport would have his name as "Bobby Dave". You have to get special dispensation from the director of the passport office to have the name on the passport in conventional, international format.

      Under the new regime the state identity papers list the tribal name so everyone has to provide them. Since many people just don't know it they use 'Borjigin' which is Chinggis Khans tribe. Thus the official numbers of this tribe is going up and up even though most of them are not actually biologically from that tribe.

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
    4. Re:His legacy is 2% by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Our family follows patronymic system. My last name, as recorded in my passport, is my dad's first name. My wife and daughter use my first name as their last names. We used to follow the system of village_name fathers_name given_name caste_name. But urbanization made the village name quaint. Caste names have become taboo in the last few decades. Leaving us with just a dad's name + given name.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  6. it was a paternity thing by steak · · Score: 4, Funny

    all those illegitimate children were looking to hit up his estate for palimony.

    --
    lose != loose
  7. Next up, finding Atlantis from Space by T.E.D. · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...and then Narnia and Oz.

    The Mongols didn't bury their dead. Their religion (like that of many nomadic pastoral societies) relied on open-air burials. The whole "tomb" myth was most likely invented by their Chinese neighbors.

    1. Re:Next up, finding Atlantis from Space by XanC · · Score: 3, Informative

      According to the article you linked:

      Nobles were also buried in coffins, but unlike Lamaistic dignitaries, these coffins were buried with additions like weapons, horses, food and other things, which were meant to help them in the next world - in Erlik-Khans kingdom. Erlik-Khan is the god of death. The location of a nobleman's tomb was kept secret, to ensure that they rested in peace.

  8. This doesn't take a genius by sacrilicious · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Genghis Khan really, really didn't want anyone to know where he was buried. The soldiers escorting his body to its final resting place killed everyone they passed, killed the people who built the tomb, and then were killed themselves.

    First guy: Hey dude, do you know how to find Genghis K's tomb?

    Second guy: Yeah, just follow the trail of blood and dead bodies.

    --
    - First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
  9. Not found by Dan+East · · Score: 3, Informative

    IMO, they've really not done much. They allowed people to tag aerial imagery for things they *think* they identify - rivers, roads, and other anomaly. That resulted in 2.3 million tags. And, well, that's it. 55 tagged areas were verified by field teams as having some interest to archaeology. However, I don't see how any of this has anything to do with Genghis Khan specifically.

    --
    Better known as 318230.
  10. Re:History Channel - Real History costs too much. by MarkvW · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Get four history professors who have divergent viewpoints and hate each other. Get somebody cool for a moderator, like Jon Stewart. Then let those boys go at it.