Home page > About
Mongolia > Culture
Culture's home page
| Cultural heritage | Museums
of Ulaanbaatar
The broad land of Mongolia has a history and
a culture that have been built up during the course
of several thousand years of human habitation,
and it is one of the cradles of civilization.
It is, therefore, very rich in relics dating from
Paleolithic times to the late middle ages. In
many ways, the territory of Mongolia has been
a bridge between East and West since the earliest
times and therefore the study of those relics
not only enriches Mongolia's history but is also
of great relevance to the study of the history
and culture of all mankind. Stone tools 500,000
years old have been found in Mongolia, proving
that Man was settled in the area at that time,
and that it was from Central Asia that he went
on to the American continent. Early Man took the
stones provided by nature and from them fashioned
stone tools; as he began to acquire finer skills
in the working of stone, he made not only weapons
but also all kinds of jewelry, implements and
stone monuments, and began to
learn how to construct towns and villages.
It has become a truism widespread in many places
that, because the Mongols adopted a nomadic pastoral
economy, they did not build towns or villages.
And yet we know from archaeological research and
from written documents that peoples of the Mongol
origin were establishing towns about 2000 years
ago and that they were erecting buildings of a
very distinctive architecture. Archaeological
evidence of more than 200 ancient towns has so
far been discovered on Mongolian territory.
The 13th-century capital of the Mongol
Empire, Karakorum, is a special example
of Mongolia's early towns and is attracting attention
from scholars in many countries. The city was
built in 1220 on the orders of Genghis Khan and
was founded on the site of a city previously occupied
during the Uighur period.
Although Buddhism has a 2000 year-old history
of propagation in Mongolia, it was not until the
16th century that it was widely spread among the
people and brought together their minds and their
everyday lives. From this time there was a tremendous
growth in monastery and temple building in Mongolia,
and a great development in the combination of
traditional nomadic architecture with temple building
skills. In Mongolian architecture the frame of
the building is made of wood but other materials
are also used, such as felt, bricks and stone,
and the main wooden props are set in stone foundations.
The influence of the nomadic lifestyle is plain
to see in the architecture of Buddhist religious
structures and dwelling places. This is why it
is so convenient to use the Mongol ger as a temple
hall. The trellis walls, roof poles and layers
of felt were replaced by stone, brick, beams and
planks, and became permanent. As parts were added
to the upper and side parts of the ger so architecture
acquired new material. As the ger changed in this
way, ger-shaped buildings emerged. From early
times Mongolian architecture has shown the influence
of the architecture of those countries with which
it has had closest cultural relations: India,
Tibet and China.
The science of architecture
appeared with the teachings of Buddhism, and 18th
and 19th century writings contain a wealth of
theoretical information on architectural ways
and means, principles and measurements. There
were highly specialized religious schools in operation
training architects, artists, and sculptors. Of
the monasteries left in Mongolia, Erdene
Zuu in Ovorkhanggai, Amarbayasgalangt
in Selengge and Gandan in Ulaanbaatar
deserve particular mention.
