The Extraordinary 3,800-Year-Old Mummy Of The Princess of Xiaohe | Marco Polo | Absolute History

This channel is part of the History Hits Network. This boy, this young merchant, is only 19 or 20 years old. What can he tell us about the Great Yuan Empire and the generation of Xiao Xiong? In 1973, after two years journey, he has reached the Pamir Mountains on the edge of today's China. For thousands of miles around, everyone at the time was the subject of the Mongol Empire. This is silk, and this used to be the Silk Road. A route not just for trade, but for ideas and beliefs for thousands of years. Europeans have always compared the search for eastern riches to the search for paradise. In the markets of Kashgar, Marco Polo has reached the gates of merchant heaven. From the west came perfumes, ivory, precious stones and glassware. From China, silk and spices. Marco Polo follows the path of the Silk Road from town to town, skirting along the southern rim of the forbidding Taklamakan Desert. The people here are Muslims. They live on merchandise and arts. Everything necessary for the life of a man is here, in great abundance. As a merchant, Marco Polo is always looking for opportunities to trade. As a young male, he's also looking for other opportunities. In Venice, Professor Zhao is continuing his quest for Marco Polo, looking for physical evidence of his existence. In the east, Marco Polo takes the southern Silk Road. He reaches a dangerous area, where many travellers believe to be the home of Marco Polo. This whole province is covered in sand. This land seems to have never been crossed by man or beast. There are no animals or birds here. There's nothing for them to eat. We can see that this is Taklamakan. Now they say it's Swaziland. He knows the dangers faced by Marco Polo at first hand. He's lost. He's lost his way. There's no water. This happens all the time in the desert. So now I'm thinking back. We're in the middle of the desert now. I think back to 700 or 800 years ago. He was in the middle of the desert. The desert is the home of many evil spirits. When a man loses his way, he begins to hear them speak. Sometimes they call him by his name. Little did Marco Polo know that this forbidding place had once been the fertile home to earlier civilizations. In the early 20th century, western archaeologists discovered evidence for these early settlements. They found ancient cities buried in the sand. The big surprise was that many of these inhabitants turned out to be Indo-Europeans, like Marco Polo himself. Idilis Abdul Rusal has worked here on an archaeological site that was first discovered in 1934, but never excavated until recently. It is a Bronze Age burial site, over 3,000 years old, in the Xinjiang province. It's very hard. If I go in today and find a tomb, I might lose it by tomorrow. It's time to go. It took Idilis years of excavation. But in 2006, he discovered a treasure. It had been under the shifting sands for centuries. We had to dig a lot of holes. There were a lot of people around when we opened it. It was about to close. We were all very curious to see what would be inside. We had to open it from the top. The first half was covered in moss. The second half was covered in moss. The third half was covered in moss. We were all very surprised. It was so beautiful. We were very surprised. She was probably in her thirties. She died in peace. She had a smile on her face. Her eyelashes were soft. I don't know who said it. She was a little princess. Everyone thought she was a little princess. Ironically, this is the safest part of his three-year long journey. In his bag, he is carrying oil from the tomb of Jesus and a letter from the Pope requesting an alliance with the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan. Much of the Mongolian grasslands is now part of China. But when Marco Polo came here, it was a different story. The Mongols had just defeated the Chinese and ruled the biggest empire the world had ever seen. The Mongols had made a new king. His name, in their language, was Genghis Khan. The multitude of Mongols who gathered in front of him was unbelievable. He provided them with bows and other weapons and started a career of conquest. This is inner Mongolia today. The lifestyle of these Mongols is eerily similar to the scenes which Marco Polo recorded in his book over 700 years ago. The young Venetian man was clearly in awe of these warriors born from a harshness he had never encountered before. He decided he wanted to conquer the whole world. The Mongols are robust. Of all the people in the world, they are the best to resist adversity and the best to conquer the territory and overthrow the kingdoms. Then as now, Mongolian boys are trained in the three manly skills horsemanship, archery, and wrestling. Mongolian wrestling, or boek, means durability. The highest honors in the martial code still goes to the Mongolian wrestlers, men trained to survive, just like in Marco Polo's time. Out on the steppe, there are still Mongols that Marco Polo would recognize today. This is Hoabsgalat. His name means revolution. He's well known on the Mongolian grassland as a breeder of fine sheep. And today he'll swap his sheep to fulfill a lifetime's ambition. I have two sheep. The fact is that the Gran Khan had a white stallion mask, without a single stain of any other color. The milk of these sheep cannot be drunk by anyone who is not of an imperial family, that is, of the Gran Khan's lineage. I have three sheep. Five prized sheep for a horse, and no money changed hands. This is how they have always traded on the grasslands. The milk of these sheep cannot be drunk by anyone who is not of an imperial family, that is, of the Gran Khan's lineage. I have three sheep. I have two sheep. I have three sheep. I have two sheep. I have three sheep. The Mongols trained their horses very well. They maneuver freely. They make them run as fast as they were dogs. For this reason, they can turn, attacking the enemy with bows and arrows. This is how they trained their horses very well. Today, in Inner Mongolia, there are only a quarter of the horses that there were a generation ago. The grasslands have become China's industrial backyard. It's not the power of the Mongols, but the power of China that can be felt everywhere. Today, there are only a quarter of the Mongols that there were a generation ago. If I hadn't been trained, I wouldn't have been able to do this. Now, I have three horses. I have three horses. Marco Polo is about to reach Zanadu and the court of the mighty Mongol emperor Kublai Khan. Venice, once a powerful trading post of the Western world. Professor Zhao is on the trail of Marco Polo, the Venetian merchant who traveled east and recorded his journeys for posterity. But Marco Polo was not just a merchant. He has a mission from the Pope to deliver a letter to the Mongol emperor asking for a political alliance. Marco Polo has traveled for three years without ever leaving Mongol territory. Now, he approaches the heart of it, the court of Kublai Khan, the grandson of the all-conquering Genghis Khan, the most powerful man in Marco Polo's time. The word Khan means the great lord of the lords and he had every right to such a title. Whether of land or treasure, the great Khan is the most powerful that has ever existed, from the times of Adam to the present day. And I will prove this right. Xanadu, all that remains of the Marble Palace, the temples, the beautiful park and the pleasure dome, the fabulous city of Kublai Khan. Through these gates, emissaries and ambassadors arrived from all over the world past the Khan's personal guard of 12,000 horsemen. He is superior to the Mongols. They have absolute loyalty to him. He is superior to nature. All animals are his prey. He is superior to men. Every feast has thousands of guests. Now, he is superior to Marco Polo. He listened to us in silence. He received the oil of the holy tomb and ordered to be guarded. He welcomed me and gave me his honorable presence. Good morning, Professor. I am Professor Gaviria. Please come with me to see the other documents. Thank you. It was this meeting with Kublai Khan that created the Marco Polo we know today. It is certainly the first time that a Western man, not an aristocrat, not a leader of a nation, meets the most important, most feared and the main political man in the world at that moment. What Marco Polo thinks of Kublai Khan is always good. Marco Polo is not an aggressive colonizer. The Great Khan is different from the Pope. He does not need everyone to obey him. He will not punish the non-believers. This impresses Mark. Mark admires Kublai Khan very much. Later, the Europeans came with Mark's book, but they were arrogant. The meeting in Zanadu is a game changer. Marco Polo arrives as an envoy of the West. But Kublai Khan rejects an alliance with the Pope and instead he hires Marco Polo for himself. Marco Polo is to report to him from the newly conquered parts of his own empire. When I started my mission, I decided to write down everything strange that I had seen, so that I could tell the Great Khan. The Khan gives him a golden pass to use the imperial postal system, the fastest and biggest communications network until the coming of the motor car. I brought with me a lot of strange wonders, and I really liked it. Many Europeans and Sumerians, like Marco Polo, serve Kublai Khan. Marco Polo is sent first to a region close to the Emperor's house. In the territory of his first conquest. So remote that it is called Yunnan, beyond the clouds. There are still people today who travel through the mountains of Yunnan in the same manner as Marco Polo did on the horse caravans. It was and still is a tough male world. But Gadana, the guide, is an exception. When I was young, I used to go to Yunnan every day. But now I don't go anymore. Wishan stands at the crossroads of ancient salt and tea routes to Tibet. Such towns were staging posts for the vast Mongol caravans that carried goods, soldiers, information and Marco Polo across the empire. There is still a hint of the heyday of the horse caravans. Marco Polo would have seen horse caravan hostels like Mother Mi's. She was still running it until the 1980s. We wish you peace, prosperity and prosperity. We will meet again in the future. We wish you peace, prosperity and prosperity. I wish you all the best. The province is of immense grandeur. The natives are obliging or idolatrous, for which reason the passage was dangerous for them. Before, there was a woman who could not speak Chinese. She could speak Chinese. When I came, I cooked food for them, but the food was disgusting. Time has stood still in this part of the world. The horse caravans are as close to the world Marco Polo described to Kublai Khan as it is possible to find today. And the tales they tell are no doubt the same, too. When I was a child, I used to play with the horses. I used to play with the horses. When I was a child, I used to play with the horses. The horses were very big. my mother, my father and my uncle. All four of us were in the village. We were all in the village. We didn't know what to do. We were called Dajiajia, Dajialong, Dagada, but we didn't know how to say it. I'm not a pure white man. I'm a white man. I love my mother. She's a normal person. She loves me as her son. and he used to say he wanted to take me back to my home town. Then he took me to his home town, and I was just crying there. I cried for a few days. Then I found out that my third son has been taking me to the village since he was 11. It's been a few hundred years. Because the road is blocked, I have to use the iron mill. I don't want to come here anymore. I'm getting old here. Every traveler dreams of the faraway, another world, another kind of life. I want to tell you a story about women in this land. No man is offended if a forester or any other man dishonors his wife or daughter. On the contrary, such a relationship is a sign of good luck. Lake Lugu, the ancient home of the Masuo people. On their sacred mountain, any traveler's desire for an exotic story could be fulfilled. This is the kingdom of women, and women do things differently. Marco Polo never hid from his readers his fascination with women, and no doubt he thought Kublai Khan would enjoy the strange customs too. Perhaps even stranger, this way of life survives today on the edge of the Tibetan plateau. Sometimes I miss my family when I'm at school. I think it's good to have a family. It's good to have a family. and I have no children. I don't know if my children are well. I have a son, and he came to my house since he was ten. I have a daughter who came to my house You're a good girl, you're a good girl. They would say, they would joke, they would say, your father doesn't own a house, your mother owns a house, they would joke like that. I would say to them, if your mother owns a house, what's so bad about it? I would say things like that. I think that's very good. If all our descendants live together, what about the descendants of our ancestors? I think the ancestors of the Muslims were very smart. In order to continue the mother-in-law family, they used a very scientific method. That's the way it is now. She decides who she lets into her room. Marco Polo records no such invitation, but happily tells of equally unusual customs to entertain the imperial ear. I don't have a husband, I don't have a husband. I don't have a husband, I don't have a husband. Therefore, uncle took part in the position of a father of another nation. He carried me on his back. I'm so happy that I can finally go to work. These are my ancestors, my grandmother's mother. Our ancestors have passed on to us. I hope we can live in peace and happiness. I'm so happy that I can finally go to work. The economic impact of the Muslim culture is huge. People who want to retire are very anxious. They are worried about losing their culture. Our ancestors are our life and death. I'm so happy that I can go to work. I'm so happy that I can finally go to work. honoured the goddess of love and beauty. I don't have a traditional culture. Although I pursue a happy life, I don't have a traditional culture that I inherited. I regret it. Society is changing. Although I want to inherit this culture, I still have to try to survive. Survival of the fittest Really? What does it mean to be strong? What does it mean to be long-lasting? The Mongol Empire once ruled the world. Now, Venice is struggling to survive. Marco Polo left a lasting impression. Marco Polo's mission is not finished yet. He travels on to Beijing, the glorious new capital of the Mongol Empire. His journey continues.