The capital of the Mongol Empire has been mapped in unprecedented detail. It turns out that the city of Karakorum was far larger than once thought and was quite unlike medieval European cities in its ...

Until now, descriptions of the city were mostly limited to the written accounts of European explorers, says a new study in the journal Antiquity. The Buddhist Erdene Zuu monastery, erected on the ...

was a long way from Wall Street. In order to learn about the history of money, I went to the middle of nowhere. Walking through a grassy plain, next to rolling hills, under a majestic blue sky. There ...

Humanity’s greatest land empire was made possible by non-human climate change. Many phenomena, real and imagined, have been attributed to global warming. From rising ocean levels to increased ...

An illustration from a medieval French manuscript depicts the Polo brothers’ meeting with Kublai Khan. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Subscribe for ads-free reading This year marks the ...

Researchers studying the rings of ancient trees in mountainous central Mongolia think they may have gotten at the mystery of how small bands of nomadic Mongol horsemen united to conquer much of the ...