The location of the burial place of Genghis Khan (died August 1227) has been the subject of much speculation and research. The site remains undiscovered, although it is generally believed that it is near the Mongol sacred mountain of Burkhan Khaldun in the Khentii Mountains.
The Genghis Khan Mausoleum is a temple dedicated to Genghis Khan in modern-day Inner Mongolia, but it is not his burial site.
Historical accounts
According to legend, Genghis Khan asked to be buried without markings or any sign, and after he died, his body was returned to present-day Mongolia.
Marco Polo wrote that, even by the late 13th century, the Mongols did not know the location of the tomb. The Secret History of the Mongols has the year of Genghis Khan's death (1227) but no information concerning his burial. In the "Travels of Marco Polo" he writes that "It has been an invariable custom, that all the grand khans, and chiefs of the race of Genghis-khan, should be carried for interment to a certain lofty mountain named Altai, and in whatever place they may happen to die, although it should be at the distance of a hundred days' journey, they are nevertheless conveyed thither."
In a frequently recounted tale, Marco Polo tells that the 2,000 slaves that attended to his funeral were killed by the soldiers sent to guard them, and that these soldiers were in turn killed by another group of soldiers which killed anyone and anything that crossed their path, in order to conceal where he was buried. Finally, the legend states that when they reached their destination they committed suicide. This tale does not appear in contemporary sources, however.
Another folkloric legend meanwhile says that a river was diverted over his grave to make it impossible to find, echoing the myth of the burial of the Sumerian King Gilgamesh of Uruk or of the Visigoth leader Alaric. Other tales state that his grave was stampeded over by many horses, that trees were then planted over the site, and that the permafrost also played its part in the hiding of the burial site. The Erdeni Tobchi (1662) claims that Genghis Khan's coffin may have been empty when it arrived in Mongolia. Similarly, the Altan Tobchi (1604) maintains that only his shirt, tent and boots were buried at the mausoleum in the Ordos (Ratchnevsky, pp. 143ff.)
Turnbull (2003, p. 24) tells another legend in which the grave was re-discovered 30 years after Genghis Khan's death. According to this tale, a young camel was buried with the Khan, and the camel's mother was later found weeping at the grave of its young. Japanese archeologist Shinpei Kato has likewise recounted the tale of the burial of the baby camel, so the parent could lead the Khan's family to the tomb when needed, as being documented in at least one ancient Chinese text.
According to the tradition of the Yuan dynasty, all the great khans of the Mongols were buried in the area around Genghis Khan's tomb. The site's name in Chinese was Qinian Valley (). However, the concrete location of the valley is never mentioned in any documents.
Modern research
More recent scholarship suggests that the burial place of Genghis Khan lies somewhere in the vicinity of the Mongol sacred mountain Burkhan Khaldun (roughly ). This was the sacred place where Genghis Khan went to pray to the sky god Tengri before embarking on his campaign to unite the Mongols and other steppe peoples. After the rise of the Mongol Empire, it then became known as Ikh Khorig, or the Great Taboo, with only the Mongol royal family, or golden family, being permitted entry to the area. In all, a 240 square-kilometre area was sealed off by the Mongols, with trespassing being punishable by death. Even in the Soviet era, the area remained restricted out of fear that the mountain could once again become a site of pilgrimage or a focus for Mongol national identity.
The Ikh Khorig has also been reported as being traditionally guarded by an Uriankhai tribe called the Darkhad that were exempted by the Mongols from taxes and military service. Such guarding of an imperial grave site "undermines the folkloric suggestion that the soldiers who witnessed the funeral were executed.”
Expeditions and investigations
In 1920, the French diplomat Saint-John Perse led an unrelated expedition through Mongolia with Chinese Post general director, Henri Picard Destelan and Dr. Jean-Augustin Bussière, in the footsteps of Genghis Khan.