Michael A. Firman
Mongolia - Country

This monastery is the seat of Buddhism in Mongolia. According to our guide, during the Soviet rule of Mongolia, the government systematically destroyed most of the Buddhist temples in the country but for some reason they left the Gandan Monastery intact. The conjecture is that, since this monastery was a "show piece" and was located in the middle of Ulaanbaatar, the Soviets decided that it would be a good idea for public relations to leave it as is.

This monastery is the seat of Buddhism in Mongolia. According to our guide, during the Soviet rule of Mongolia, the government systematically destroyed most of the Buddhist temples in the country but for some reason they left the Gandan Monastery intact. The conjecture is that, since this monastery was a "show piece" and was located in the middle of Ulaanbaatar, the Soviets decided that it would be a good idea for public relations to leave it as is.

According to Badral (our guide), this sign (which was in the center of the city) depicts a Mongolian folk story about the mother of Genghis Khan giving advice to her sons. She tells them, using a quiver of arrows to demonstrate, that united they can stand strong but divided they will perish. The sign has, along the edges, a quote from the story written in Mongolian script. This is a cursive script that is written from top to bottom (Japanese and Chinese are written from top to bottom but they are not cursive scripts) which makes it unique amongst written languages. This script was banned by the Soviets while they were in power (they replaced the script with an augmented version of the Cyrillic alphabet - most of the street signs are written using Cyrillic). It is now slowly being reintroduced to the younger generation.

The last night of the dig we encountered a sandstorm out in the Gobi. Our tents were flattened and we moved into the gers. In the morning Ed said the he felt a mouse or something run over him while he was in his sleeping bag. A little later, while packing up her sleeping bag, Marilyn thought that bruce (who was sort of folded up along an edge of the ger) was kicking her (it was rather cramped at this point in the ger). Upon investigating this however she discovered our friend the hedgehog.

Gers are the dwellings used by the Nomadic herders that live in the Mongolian countryside. They are a very stable, comfortable, and portable place to live. Badral (our guide) said that it takes three people about a half an hour to erect a ger. I have seen three men tear one down completely in about 15 minutes. We also spent the night in a ger during a sand storm while we were out at the Tugrigiin Shiree. While our Kelty tents were flattened by the winds, the ger remained solid and comfortable.

According to Badral (our guide) this is a dice set used by the Nomads for various games. As pictured the facets are: Sheep (with horns up), Goat (opposite side of Sheep), Horse (the "flat" side), and Camel (opposite of Horse and sort of "humpy"). The children play a horse racing game using the rolls of these dice to move little tokens (representing horses) along. When a roll produces a Horse facet the token is moved (notice that the Horse facet is the flat one so that it is more difficult to roll a Horse).

Mongolia is a vast country and the Gobi is as barren as anyone could imagine. Other than in geological out croppings such as the Bayan Zag, no plants seem to grow larger than about six inches tall.

This is the instrument most identified with Mongolia. It is a "Horse Head" fiddle (in Mongolian: Morin Khuur) which has two strings and is played much as a cello is in western music. They are ornately carved and have a beautiful mournful tone. Note that this is a photo I took of a small model of a Morin Khuur (about 16" long) that I purchased. The little models are sold as souvenirs but are beautifully made and ornately carved and can actually produce sound.