Cities and the mongol conquest: urban change in Central Asia 1200-1400

In the early decades of the 13th century, the Mongols swept through Central Asia, sacking the cities of the Khwarazmian Empire and apparently causing economic chaos throughout the region. The Persian historians Rashid al-din, Juvaini and others describe this as a traumatic event with cities razed and populations slaughtered. This thesis archaeologically examines urban change from the 12th to 14th centuries at three cities impacted by the conquest: Otrar in Kazakhstan, Barda in Azerbaijan and Merv in Turkmenistan. Following excavation, re-excavation and review of available published and unpublished material, no convincing evidence of Mongol destruction or victims of the described slaughter were found at any of the sites. At Merv, the only site to witness a negative impact of the conquest according to the archaeological evidence, the picture is one of depopulation and desertion rather than destruction. As such the ‘destruction’ caused by the Mongols at this site (and others) might be seen as Mongol-inflicted depopulation through conscription and enslavement, leading to the decay of the mudbrick city rather than outright destruction. At Otrar, previous excavations had reported a decades long abandonment on the city’s shahristan, but radiocarbon dating and contextualisation with ceramic and coin evidence showed that this district of the city was abandoned by at least 1150, almost a century before the arrival of the Mongols in 1219. Indeed, broader coin finds across the main part of Otrar show that the city may have been effectively abandoned or at least significantly depopulated through the 12th and early 13th centuries.
Compared to Merv, the new political situation seems to have benefitted Otrar and Barda, neither of which showed significant change in the character of urban occupation in the first half of the 13th century. Dense urban occupation returned to the shahristan of Otrar by the 14th century, with the revival probably beginning in the later 13th. Barda perhaps experienced the most dramatic transformation through the period. Despite reports of its decline in the 12th century, it appears to have experienced something of a revival, which continued through the 13th century. The construction of two monumental tomb towers at the city in the early 14th century was likely patronised by the Ilkhanid elite, and transformed Barda from a minor town to an important symbol of Mongol rule on the grassy plains of Azerbaijan. Expanding more broadly from the individual cities, I conclude that the Mongols’ relationship with cities was not only destructive or passive as they left the mechanics of rule to their administrators and shunned the cities in favour of seasonal movement and tents. Instead, urban investments made during Mongol rule transformed the character of Barda and Otrar far more than the ‘destruction’ of the early 13th century, while their attempts to revive Merv probably began its southward shift which was completed in the 15th century. Furthermore, the movement of Mongol capitals northwards towards the steppe or ‘steppe-like’ zones of Azerbaijan and the Caucasus led to longer term shifts in urban dynamics from which some cities, including Merv, never fully recovered.

Keywords: Azerbaijan
Earthen Architecture
Urban Archaeology
Silk Road
Kazakhstan
Archaeological Excavation
Archaeology- Abandonment
Archaeology- Destruction
Turkmenistan
Medieval Cities
Caucasus
Mongol Conquest
Central Asia
Advisor: Wordsworth, P
Gosden, C