Luke is back

The Mongolia News blog these days certainly is Luke Distelhorsts Mongolia NewEurasia. After some wel deserved holiday he is back on the track, with a couple of posts on:

• US Deputy Assistant Secretary Of State In Mongolia (is that the assistant of the deputy of the assistant secretary, the assistant of the deputy secretary or the secretary of the deputy assistant?)
• Spring In The Mongolian Gobi (Dornogovi Aimag) - excellent images and info
• Land in Ulaanbaatar Designated For Schools - pressing issue

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technorati: mongolia

Mongolian language documents in the vatican archive

Stumbles across an interesting site of the Vatican Archives, where several Mongol Bichig documents are still kept. The story that I know, that isn't mentioned here is that of Raban Sauma, who travels from the Mongolian Court in Beijing all the way to the Vatican and delivers a letter.

On the Vatican site they have some information on the Ilkhans of Persia:

"The three documents written by the chancery of the Mongolian Ilkhans of Persia are respectively: a safe-conduct of 1267 (or at latest of 1279) issued by Abaya to a papal embassy on his way back to the West; a letter by Aryun to Pope Nicholas IV «the fifth day of the new moon of the first month of the Summer of the year of the Tiger » (14th May 1290) and a letter by Gasan to Pope Boniface VIII of 1302 on the negotiations for the common attack plans against the Mamelukes of Egypt, who then were also the lords of Syria."