Gideon Shelach-Lavi, The Louis Frieberg Professor of East Asian Studies, Department of Asian Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Wall: People and Ecology in Medieval Mongolia and China, is a multidisciplinary research project funded by a grant from the European Research Council (ERC). It combines archeological, historical and paleoclimatic research and addresses what is perhaps the most enigmatic episode of ‘Great Wall’ construction in China and Mongolia. Built sometime between the eleventh and the fourteenth centuries AD, this network of walls, forts, and enclosures covers an estimated area of 4,000 km and spans a wide range of ecozones, from the deserts of western China to the steppes of northern Mongolia and the Khingan mountain range. While this is one of the longest and most elaborated systems of its kind in the world, it is unclear who built it, when exactly it was built, and for what purpose. Analyzing such a huge monument is relevant to some of the most fundamental issues that are at the core of our international workshop on Walls, Borders, and Frontier Zones in the Ancient and the Contemporary World: Why did states and empires invest such tremendous resources in the construction of such barriers? What were the functions for which they were constructed? What can we learn from such linear structures about the conceptions of borders and border zones in Medieval East Asia?
In my talk, I will present the framework of The Wall project and discuss some of the work our team has done so far. The wall system we study is composed of two main lines – the northern and the southern lines, each with its unique geographical and structural characteristics. My talk will focus on the Northern wall line, which is sometime dubbed the “Great Wall of Chinggis Khan” (or "Chinggis Khan's wall"). This line is some 740km long and is accompanied by large enclosures situated mostly on its southern side. Previous research assumed that it was constructed sometime between the 11th and 14th centuries AD, but no historical text describes its construction or explicitly discusses how and by whom it was used. Prior to our research project, only sporadic archaeological work had been conducted on parts of this wall-line located in Mongolia, Russia, and China. So far, we conducted three seasons of archaeological field work, including a survey of the wall line (2018) and two seasons of excavations (2019 and 2022) of two locations along this line. This is an on-going project. While it has already clarified some of our initial research questions, we hope that future analysis of the data collected in the field, as well as the acquisition of additional data, will improve our understanding of the wall system.
One aspect of our research, which I will report on in my paper, is a geographical-based analysis of the location of the wall line, and, specifically, the geographical positioning of structures that accompany the wall line. This analysis, as well as the results of our excavations, strongly suggest that the main aim of the wall's construction was not military, but rather, civilian. Our hypothesis, which we believe is supported by the results of our research, is that the wall system was geared towards monitoring and controlling the movement of people rather than defending against attack by large armies.
Our excavations of the barrier line itself suggest that it was not a wall line, as we initially assumed, but rather a long ditch line. The earth excavated from the ditch was piled on the inner (southern) side of the line, creating a wall-like affect, but it was not used to construct a solid wall. Thus, crossing this barrier would not have posed a significant challenge for invading armies, but it could have channeled the movement of nomads and their herds. By contrast, the large enclosures located south of the ditch-line were surrounded by extensive walls that were constructed using the rammed earth technique (Chinese: hangtu 夯土). We are still unclear as to the function of these structures, but our recent excavations exposed extensive evidence of the daily activities that were carried out in and around them. In my talk, I will discuss the structure of these enclosures and the artifacts found in them and will outline our ongoing analysis of those findings.
Preliminary dates (14C) from our 2019 excavations place the construction and use of the Northern Line in the 11th or early 12th centuries AD. In historical terms, this was a period when the Liao/Khitan dynasty controlled this region. In my paper, I will examine possible reasons for the construction of this wall (ditch) line by the Liao and hypothesize on the ecological and climatic conditions that could have contributed to the need (or perceived need) for the construction of such an expensive and labor-intensive monument.