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The spirit of Chinggis Khaan still haunts scholars and adventurers from all over the world. While his birthplace is known to be in eastern Mongolia (in the Dadal locality of Khentii province), the mystery of his exact burial site is unsolved.
Legend says vast treasures were brought from all corners of his vast empire and he was buried in the Great Emperor's tomb according to nomadic chieftain tradition, along with his horse and weapons. With the fall of the Iron Curtain and break-up of the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Mongolia opened up, and efforts to find the tomb and solve the mystery were revived. It is known that Chinggis Khaan, died aged 72 on 18 August 1227 as a result of a sudden illness, while on a military raid to the Tangut state in China. At the time he was ruler of an empire stretching from the Adriatic to the Yellow Sea. However, few clues are available about the location of his grave as such ceremonies were held in great secrecy. Marco Polo, the enterprising Venetian trader who spent almost three decades in China serving Khublai Khaan during the 13th century, describes the burials of lords in his accounts:
But even more precautions were taken to ensure secrecy. According to a popular legend, the area around the graveyard was surrounded by troops for three months, and they grazed herds of horses that trampled the ground above the tomb. Moreover, a young camel was buried in the tomb, and after a year the mother camel brought back to check if she could find the spot. One of the few hints of the tomb's location is contained in The Secret History of Mongols, an oral epic about the life and acts of Chinggis Khaan. It mentions that one day the emperor was hunting in the mountains in his native land. When he sat to rest under a tree, he allegedly said: "What a beautiful view! Bury me here when I pass away." As early as the 1980s, Prof. Badamkhatan, a prominent Mongolian scholar, began to try to put the puzzle together by sifting through many stories and identifying common elements that might hold a seed of truth. "I found a key to the puzzle. There is a vast mountainous area in Khentii province known as Ikh Khorig or the Great Taboo. It covers roughly 240 square kilometers of wilderness. And this is the sacred burial ground of Mongol Khaans,' he says.
Burkhan Khaldun, a mountain massif, rises about 7,000 feet out of a complex network of valleys and mountains covered with thick forest. Somewhere on its slopes is a valley of Khaans where one of the greatest warriors in history is buried. The taboo was protected by more than wild beasts. When Chinggis Khaan died, 50 families were appointed the guardians of the perpetuity and ordered to ensure that no one entered even under threat of death. Only the families could graze herds there, and they and their descendants were freed of all tax obligations. They maintained three lines of defense on three small valleys cutting across the Kherlen valley - the only way into the sanctuary. These special praetorian guards became known as Darkhats from the verb darkhlakh which means 'to prohibit or forbid'. The tribe originally came from western Mongolia and served as guards of Chinggis Khaan's war standard or Nine Banners. From generation to generation, this tribe faithfully guarded and passed on the secret of the Great Taboo.
The first attempt to breach the taboo and uncover the secret of the burial site was made in 1989, 800 years after the death of Chinggis Khaan. That year at the initiative and with financial support of the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, a joint Mongolian-Japanese archeological expedition called "Three Rivers" was launched. Using the latest ultrasound technology that had aided the discovery of several, previously unknown tombs inside the Egyptian pyramids, the expedition combed the area for artificial, man-made cavities. During three years of fieldwork from 1989 to 1992, the expedition identified about 1380 underground cavities that may be the graveyards and tombs of Mongolian nobles. However, the expedition provoked strong public protests, as Mongolians detest any attempt to touch graves, or even wander around graveyards. According to ancient tradition, burial spots are forbidden areas in which no one is allowed. As a result of the public outcry, the expedition did not make any attempt to unearth the most likely looking places. Leading archeologist, D. Navaan is rather doubtful about the joint expedition results. "I do not believe it. They speak about more than 800 burial sites. It can't be true. The burial places of Mongolian Khaans are sacred and must be hidden in a very secret place." Despite such criticism, the expedition was the first scientific effort to spot the burial site and it probably came closest to solving one of remaining great mysteries, rivaling such archeological discoveries as Troy or along the Nile.
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