Written source · German

Hammer-Purgstall's History of the Ilkhans, the Mongols in Persia (1842 to 1843)

The Mongol conquest and rule of Iran, from Chinggis Khan's rise to the fall of Hulagu's dynasty, retold from the Persian court historians.

Full title History of the Ilkhans, that is, of the Mongols in Persia, 2 vols (Darmstadt 1842-1843), with translated extracts from Rashid al-Din, Wassaf and other Persian historians

Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall

Read the 4 passages Open the original book

The companion to Hammer-Purgstall's Golden Horde volume, published in two volumes at Darmstadt in 1842 to 1843. Book 1 surveys the Mongol tribes, Chinggis Khan's family, law and testament, and the 'character and customs, superstitions and usages' of the Mongols, drawing on Rashid al-Din, Carpini, Rubruck and Mirkhwand; the rest follows Hulagu's campaigns against the Assassins and Baghdad (1256 to 1258) and the reigns of the Ilkhans to the mid-fourteenth century, largely after Wassaf and Rashid al-Din. The corpus holds IA scans of both volumes.

How they knew: Compiled from others
Who “Tartar” means here: 'Tataren' is both the name of one Mongolian-speaking tribe, the ancient enemies of Chinggis Khan's ancestors, and, in the words of the Persian historians Hammer translates, the whole Mongol host that conquered Iran and Iraq.
Why read it: Brings together in one place the origin legend of the Mongols, the felt-raising of a new khan, and the Persian historians' view of the 'Tatar' armies as Gog and Magog unleashed.
Watch out: Loose translations and quotations stitched from many sources; the general portrait of Mongol character is a patchwork of hostile medieval reports, including charges of cannibalism.

What it says: 4 passages

Buildings Mongol steppe (general)13th century

Women made the tents

Editorial contextIn his sketch of Mongol character and customs Hammer notes that the women, whose greatest beauty was the smallest nose, prepared the kumiss and the dried sour milk called kurut, and made all household goods: clothes, tents, harness, shields, shoes, socks and beds. So the felt dwellings of the steppe were women's work. The same page repeats, from hostile medieval writers, that Mongols ate mice, dogs, cats and even roasted human flesh.

The women, whose greatest beauty was the smallest nose, as among the Chinese the smallest foot, prepared the kumiss and the dried sour milk called kurut; they made all kinds of household goods, clothes, tents, riding gear, shields, shoes, socks, beds
Working translation
Original wording
Die Weiber, deren grösste Schönheit die kleinste Nase, wie bei den Chinesen der kleinste Fuss, bereiteten den Kumis und die getrocknete sauere Milch, welche Kurut hiess; sie verfertigten alle Arten der Hausgeräthe, Kleider, Zelte, Reitzeug, Schilde, Schuhe, Socken, Betten

Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (1842), compiling Rubruck and other travellers

See the original page (p. 45)

About Mongol women

Keep in mind

Second-hand composite; the cannibalism charge on the same page repeats enemy propaganda.

Daily life Near Karakorum, Mongolia1246

A new khan lifted on white felt

Editorial contextAt Güyük's enthronement the princes and nobles set him on a golden seat, then moved him down onto a felt on the ground and told him to look up to God in heaven and down to the felt on earth: rule justly and the earth would obey him; rule badly and not even the felt he sat on would be his. Then they raised him and his wife together on the felt and proclaimed them khan and great lady. Caps flew, belts were thrown over shoulders, the crowd knelt nine times, and for seven days meat, salt and mare's milk were handed out from the khan's tent; the women's seats in the golden throne tent were of white felt.

they moved him from the golden seat onto a felt rug on the ground and said: Look up to God in heaven and down at the felt on the earth; if you rule well, if you are just and generous and honour the princes and lords, the earth will be subject to you at your will; otherwise you will be poor, despised and wretched, and not even the felt you sit on will be yours.
Working translation
Original wording
setzten ihn vom goldenen Stuhle auf eine Filzdecke auf die Erde und sagten: Schaue auf zu Gott im Himmel und nieder auf den Filz zur Erde; wenn du gut regierst, wenn du gerecht, freigebig, die Prinzen und Freiherren ehrst, wird dir die Erde unterthan sein nach deinem Willen; im Gegentheil wirst du arm, verachtet und elend sein und nicht einmal der Filz wird dein gehören, auf dem du sitzest.

Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (1842), after Carpini and Mirkhwand

See the original page (p. 57)

About Mongol princes and nobles; Güyük Khan and his wife Oghul Qaimish

Keep in mind

Hammer's footnotes cite Carpini, who was present in 1246, and the later Persian historian Mirkhwand; the page does not make clear which detail comes from which.

The name Mongolia and the Altai (legendary valley of Ergenekun)Legend set some two thousand years before Chinggis Khan

Wiped out by the Tatars: the Mongols' escape from Ergenekun

Editorial contextHammer retells the Mongol origin legend: long before Chinggis Khan the Mongols were exterminated by their enemies the Tatars, all but two men, Tegus and Kijan, who fled into a valley walled by steep rocks. Over centuries their descendants multiplied and, tired of their mountain prison and their mining, broke out by driving the flames of great wood piles with seventy bellows against the ore wall until it melted (p. 14). All true Mongols claimed descent from these two. Hammer suspects the story hides the real subjugation of the Xiongnu, who mined for their conquerors in the Altai, and notes that Persian poets placed this mountain prison behind the dam of Gog and Magog.

A couple of thousand years before Chinggis Khan, so the folk legend tells, the Mongols had been exterminated by their enemies, the Tatars, all but two men, one called Tegus, the other Kijan, that is, 'stream'; they fled into a valley enclosed all round by steep rocks, where, multiplying over the course of centuries, and at last weary of their mountain prison and their mining
Working translation
Original wording
Ein Paar tausend Jahre vor Tschengischan, so erzählt die Volkssage, waren die Mongolen von ihren Feinden, den Tataren, bis auf zwei Männer ausgerottet worden, deren einer Tegus, der andere Kijan, d. i. Strom, hiess; sie flüchteten in ein rundum von steilen Felsen umschlossenes Thal, wo sie im Verlaufe von Jahrhunderten sich vermehrend, ihres Bergkerkers und Bergbaues endlich müde

Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (1842), retelling a Mongol folk legend from his Persian sources

See the original page (p. 13)

About Mongols and Tatars (in legend)

Keep in mind

An origin legend, not history; the Xiongnu interpretation is Hammer's own guess.

Strange tales Baghdad, IraqJanuary 1258

Tatars who take the dam of Gog and Magog for a cobweb

Editorial contextAs Hulagu closed on Baghdad, the last Abbasid caliph, told that the Mongol vanguard had crossed the Hamrin hills, asked how that could be. The answer, in Wassaf's ornate rhymed prose (rendered by Hammer in rhyme), paints the Tatars as a sea flood flying over peaks like eagles, for whom the legendary dam of Gog and Magog, Alexander's barrier against the peoples of the north, is no more than a cobweb. Hammer then describes how the Mongols ringed Baghdad with a hastily raised earthen rampart.

The army of the Tatars, who come on like the floods of the sea, flies over the mountain tops like flocks of eagles; since they regard the dam of Gog and Magog as a cobweb, what else should rise from their hooves on the heights of Hamrin but dust, what else should come out of the storm in which they ride but fire and plunder
Working translation
Original wording
Das Heer der Tataren, die wie die Meeresfluthen einherfahren, überfliegt der Berge Gipfel wie der Adler Schaaren; da sie den Damm von Gog und Magog für Spinngeweb' ansehen, was soll auf des Hamrin's Höhen aus ihren Hufen wohl anders erstehen, als Staub, was soll aus dem Sturme, in dem sie daherfahren, wohl anders aufgehen, als Feuer und Raub

Wassaf (Persian court historian, early 14th century), translated by Hammer-Purgstall (1842)

See the original page (p. 149)

About Hulagu's Mongol army ('the Tatars'); the caliph al-Musta'sim

Keep in mind

Literary rhetoric written decades later, not a record of what was said to the caliph.

The fine print

How we know

compilation Assembled from earlier sources. The author did not observe it directly.

retrospective history compiled from Persian and Arabic chronicles (Rashid al-Din, Wassaf, Mirkhwand, Hamdallah Mustawfi) and Armenian and European sources

Research notes

Same methodological caveats as the Golden Horde volume; Hammer relied on Vienna manuscripts and earlier French translations (d'Ohsson).

Why it matters

Companion to the Golden Horde history: the Persian Mongol state seen through its own historians, useful for cross-checking the Golden Horde and Chaghatai material and for Hammer's handling of the Persian sources on the Mongol conquests.

Places named

Iran; Azerbaijan; Iraq; Khorasan; Anatolia; Caucasus; Central Asia (Chaghatai relations)

Peoples named

Mongols and the Mongol empire

Golden Horde and its Tatar successor khanates

Golden Horde

Persian, Arab, Ottoman and other Islamic states

Mamluks

Peoples of the Caucasus

Ilkhanate; Mongols; Chaghatai ulus; Golden Horde (wars); Mamluks; Armenians; Georgians

Keep exploring

The witness before

c. 1245 to 1329Carpini and Rubruck in the original LatinThe Paris Geographical Society's 1839 volume printing the Latin reports of the friars John of Plano Carpini (1245-1247) and William of Rubruck (1253-1255), with Jordanus and learned notes.Part eyewitness · 19 passages

The witness after

1260 to 1305Hayton's Flower of the Histories of the EastAn Armenian prince who knew the Mongol court dictates, in 1307, a geography of Asia and a history of the Tartar khans from Genghis to his own day.Part eyewitness · 13 passages

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