Not much Hobby happening recently, as England is now engaged in its third war with the angry ball of heat in the sky this summer...yet another heatwave, which are not conducive to painting time.
Instead I post photo's from a visit to the Royal Armouries.
The Royal Armouries museum in Leeds, UK, is a great free museum filled with weapons and armour from all ages and interactive exhibits.
Nothing unusual there for most modern museums...
The special exhibition running over the summer though, is one which I wanted to visit when I saw advertised.
Two tickets later and me and the Mrs were on our way.
The exhibition is obviously about Ghengis Khan, but also about the Mongol empires over the centuries when they rules from far China and Korea, all the way to Eastern Europe and Poland, Romania and Ukraine, as well as Turkey, Iran and Syria.
Here are all the photo's I took of this things we were allowed to photograph inside the exhibition, as several exhibits were off limits to photography, and several more were occluded by the lights reflecting in the glass cases they were displayed in:
Obviously the entire exhibit begins with an introduction to perhaps the most famous warlord in history, but it goes on to detail how the Mongolian empire encouraged rebuilding after the conquest phase was over, how they rebuilt cities after taking rulership and encouraging peace amongst the many disparate people's they governed.
And the other half of the coin to Genghis. Börte, his wife, who was the influential Empress of the Empire and outlived Ghengis.
The driving factor of one of the Mongolian's pushes into, and eventual conquering of China, Alaqai Beki. Given all the history rewiting and pushing of "agenda's" in the media, especially in the West over the last decade or so, it is interesting to read and learn about women ruling portions of an empire in their own right. I was going to say without any fear of reprisal or attempts on her life by ambitious rivals, but when your father is Genghis Khan, I suppose that gives you a certain level of security in everything!
The recorded history going back even further was interesting, as I had no idea about the Xiongnu Empire. Interesting to see that things such as political marriages and tribute haven't changed since...ever really.
Interesting artwork, painted on silk originally, this is obviously a copy, but the original survives in Mongolia. Amazing to think that it is over 700 years old at this point.
The Imperial Family tree, the most famous Mongolian leaders are all listed of course, but all the lesser known ones of Genghis line as well.
It was interesting to note just how many wargame (Sci-Fi and Fantasy) references I could make whilst walking round, for where Games Developers have stolen names to use in their stories.
Even at their height, they were still a nomadic people, with all the prize and possessiveness that goes into owning a horse amongst such a culture implies. This section about the walking cities included a section I should have photographed but couldn't because people were in the way.
But it talks about the first intercity postal service, with riders travelling and changing horses at stopping posts, wells being dug strategically for horse to drink and rest, meaning that news could travel from China to Turkey in a matter of days, instead of months.
At it's zenith, this is all the lands that the Mongolian Empire covered.
Karakorum is listed as the Capital of the Empire, a dedicated, walled city to project power, only foundation lines of buildings have been found demarking where the city was, otherwise it would be lost to time.
Novgorod, I found amusing, as the story goes that the Golden Horde were descending towards the city, and it was only saved by a change of the weather, causing the horde to redirect southwards towards Kiev.
This was the entrance to the Silk Road exhibit, where much of the worlds trade at the time began to flourish, and the first proper cartography of the world began to take shape.
There was a fascinating map of the world which they recovered and restored which shows just how much geography they knew and it is nearly accurate, even now.
Religious tolerance isn't something we hear about much, especially in history, as western Europe is filled with Catholicism, the Protestant Church of England and then the rise of Islam through the 1000's and 1100's. To think that the Mongolian Empire, an empire usually depicted as bloodthirsty ravaging hordes of barbarian horsemen practiced religious tolerance is interesting.
The entire section about this is fascinating, that they would allow any priest to live tax free, and to practice religion to their people freely.
If I remember correctly the plaque said that the empire contained records from Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Taoism, Confucianism, as well as several India religions.
There were several of these large screens depicting images replicated from preserved scrollwork, accompanied by sounds of horses galloping at speed as you walk through the warfare area.
In Khutulun here, the Mrs said she had found her spirit ancestor, wrestling suitors who couldn't beat her and winning horses by the herd.
The Blue Princess was mentioned in several of the cases I couldn't get good photo's of unfortunately:
As you leave the exhibit, this is the last item you pass, in it's own area with the night sky and mountains behind, with hunting bird calls as you pass through.
Here ends the Mongolian Empire exhibition, I will post the other photo's, especially the Samurai Armour which I spent a long time looking at in another post to follow this one.
Until next time, have nice day...
