Archaeologists excavate part of the medieval wall system in Mongolia
Gideon Shelach-Lavi et al. 2025
Long before the large wall of China was built, other monumental walls were built over the Eurasian steppes – but they were not designed to defend themselves against Mongolian armies. Recent excavations reveal that they were erected to control the movement of people or demonstrate power, just like border walls today.
The large wall in China spans many thousands of kilometers, Lonest Stretch runs about 8850 kilometers. This part comes from the Ming dynasty (ad 1368 to 1644) and served as a physical barrier to defend against Mongolian attacks.
Unlike the large wall, which – as the name implicitly – consists of large walls, the former system is a network of trealches, walls and encapsulations that extend to the Appellic 4000 kilometers across more northern regions of China, Mongolia and Russia.
It was built between the 10th and 12th century by several dynasties, mainly the Jin Dynasty (1115 to 1234), founded by the Jurchen People of Siberia and northeastern China, which were mainly pastoralists.
Gideon Shelach-Lavi at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Hans Colleugues had already examined and mapped the walls using satellite images and drones, but now they have studied a section that was running for 405 kilometers through what is now Mongolia and excavated by one of the encapsulations.
The structures consisted of a ditch approx. 1 meter deep and 3 meters wide, with the ground from it stacked up on one, creating a wall of compressed soil that may have been a meter or two high. Then there was a thick, square, stone enclosure, approx. 30 meters across a few kilometers along the wall along the wall.
What the walls were built for has not been ready. There is very little historical documentation about them and they were not built at natural geographical boundaries, Sayylach-Lavi.
Many historians believed that they were built to stop armies by Genghis Khan, who ruled the Mongolian Empire from 1206 to 1227, Sayylach-Lavi.
However, the structures would not have been particularly effective defensively. “This was not meant to stop invading armies,” says Shelach-Lavi.
Instead, he suggests it was more of a power show – to demonstrate that the area was under control of the Jin dynasty. The wall would also have funnel people through gates at the encapsulation so that the flow of people, goods and animals could be controlled. It may also have been used to take small raids, even if not stop armies, he says.
“The idea, I think, is to channel these people where you have these encapsulations so you can control them, you can tax them,” he says. “It’s a matter of checking who is moving, and in this regard, it’s not much different from what we see today.”
Finds the cabinet also Shef Light about how people who may have lived. “This is a pastoralist area,” says Shelach-Lavi. “We find a lot of evidence in the region that people live by herd and hunting and fishing.”
And yet, on the cabinet, the researchers found coins from the Han Chinese Song dynasty, which was with the Jin dynasty as well as ceramics, a plow head and a stone platform or bench that could be heated and used as a stove or bed.
This involves the meaningful resources we invested in Garrison’s construction and maintenance, says Shelach-Lavi, and also that the people lived here all year round and practiced farming. “It’s surprising because they even today are doing farming in this place,” he says.
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