Who Built This Mysterious Military Fortress And Why?! | Secrets In The Sand | Science Channel

Bayankangor Province stretches over 40,000 square miles across southwestern Mongolia. The province lies northwest of the Gobi Desert, one of the largest deserts in the world. Unlike many sandy deserts, the Gobi is characterized as a winter desert because of its extreme weather. The summers are blisteringly hot, well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but the winters are the polar opposite, often plunging down to minus 40 degrees. That harsh climate has a huge impact on Bayankangor. Like the Gobi, the province is incredibly dry and endures these long, frigid winters. But as you head north toward the foothills of the Kangai Mountains, the landscape starts to shift. It becomes less sandy and more rocky, opening up into these vast plains. A team of archaeologists is working in the northwestern district of Bayan Bulag when they unearth a surprise. They found the remains of an old structure, specifically two massive walls made of rammed earth. It's an ancient building technique that involves compacting damp soil and clay until it becomes extremely dense. These walls were incredibly durable, well insulated, and even fireproof. There are several chambers associated with the walls, which look like barracks or some kind of bunkers, and inside are all kinds of weapons. There are crossbows made of copper, bronze, and iron, sword guards, knives, and pieces of iron armor. This place seems to have been armed to the teeth. But if this was a military fortress, who built it and why? The answers may lie in the pages of one of the most important historical documents ever written, a record known as the Shiji. It's difficult to overstate the importance of the Shiji, which is also known as the records of the Grand Historian It was written more than 2,000 years ago by a man named Sima Qian, who served as a grand historian to the Emperor Wudi. Wudi was the seventh emperor of the Han dynasty and one of the most influential. Under his reign, the Han dynasty dramatically expanded its influence and developed a strong centralized state. Before the Shiji existed, independent states would chronicle their own histories, which could often be confusing and conflict with one another. This was the first time a historian took the time to sift through these accounts and organize them into a coherent structure. This process took Sima Qian almost two decades, and by the time he had finished the Shiji, it covered roughly 2,000 years of Chinese history. In the record, there are references to a military structure built in southern Mongolia during the Han dynasty, around 104 BCE. The fortress was called Shoujiangcheng, which roughly translates to fortification for receiving surrender. Its exact location has been debated for centuries, but the discovery at Bayan Bulag seems to fit the profile. Could these be the ruins of the very same fortress? The archaeologists working at the Bayan Bulag site come upon a second, far more chilling discovery. The team was digging in a second pit close to the fortress when they began to notice bones sticking out of the earth. But this wasn't just one body. As they started to excavate the skeletons, they realized what they were looking at was a mass grave. The skeletons are tightly mixed together, and they're hard to disentangle. But based on the number of skulls, it looks like there are at least 17 individuals buried here. Although that could be an undercount. The clay surrounding the bodies preserved their positions, and it seems as though many were kneeling when they were killed. One of the victims appeared to have been laying down, attempting to cover or defend himself with his hands when his legs and arms were cut off. All of the skeletons show signs of dismemberment or amputation. And that's not all. The bones also bear the scars of sharp and blunt force trauma, painting a picture of a group that died an exceptionally violent death. But who were they? The long-forgotten grave isn't the only astonishing burial in the region. Just over 200 miles northeast of Bayan Bilag, in the Under Ulan district of Arkhangai province, archaeologists discovered the remains of another extraordinary resting place, known today as Gol Mod II. The Gol Mod II site isn't so much a grave as a necropolis. Over the years, roughly 400 graves have been uncovered here. They're carefully arranged, with the largest and grandest elite tombs surrounded by smaller satellite burials, which suggest a clear social hierarchy. Inside the elite tombs, there were elaborate grave goods, including gold and silver ornaments, silk, and impressive felt rugs. Gol Mod II is one of 10 enormous necropolises scattered across Mongolia and Russia. These huge complexes belong to an ancient civilization known as the Jiangnu. They were nomadic people who dominated the Eurasian steppe for over 500 years. They were actually a confederacy of nomadic tribes, but they banded together to fight against the Chinese, who were expanding from the south. The Jiangnu were formidable fighters, both expert horseback riders and archers. They formed armies of up to 300,000 mounted warriors, strong enough to pose existential threat to China's northern borders. The Jiangnu rose in power roughly alongside the Han dynasty, and the two kingdoms went on to fight a series of wars over the course of two centuries, from about 133 BCE to 89 CE. During Emperor Rudy's reign, tensions between the Han and Jiangnu escalated sharply. The Han military began to build more infrastructure than ever to fight against the Jiangnu's nomadic armies. According to the Shiji, one of these fortresses was the Shoujiangcheng. Based on its location, the Bayanbulag fortress may well be the Shoujiangcheng, built to defend Han territory from incoming Jiangnu attacks. The mass grave could well be the result of one of these clashes, but one question remains. Which side do these bodies belong to? The archaeologists working in Bayanbulag began to spot clues that could point to where these soldiers came from. Rather than digging a new grave for these bodies, it looks like the people burying them took advantage of a hole that was already available. The pit they were found in was a mine beforehand, and it was only repurposed as a grave after the massacre. So it definitely seems like an undignified resting place. Combine that with the level of violence inflicted on the victims, and you can see this hypothesis that maybe these were the bodies of enemy soldiers who had been taken prisoner. But other clues point to a different possibility. Alongside the bodies, the team discovered other objects, including shards of Han-style pottery, an iron halberd, and a clay seal with the mark of a Han official. These artifacts suggest that these men weren't Jiangnu soldiers taken to the fortress, but actually Han soldiers killed near their own fortress and buried next to it. To confirm the identities of these forgotten soldiers, the archaeologists gather forensic evidence from the mass burial for testing. Using samples pulled from the bones and teeth, they confirm that these skeletons all belonged to men of military age, between 20 and 50 years old. These samples were then compared to a set of modern East Asian populations, which established that the individuals were genetically closer to Han descendants than any other group. This single discovery sheds new light on the chaos of the burial itself. It's possible that the Jiangnu riders managed to lay siege to the fortress, successfully attacking and killing some of the men stationed there. These deaths were intentionally violent. At the time, death by dismemberment was considered the most shameful way to die, and the Jiangnu appear to have inflicted as much shame on their victims as possible. But that isn't the end of the story. Once these Han soldiers had been killed, their comrades actually gathered their dismembered bodies, collecting the pieces of severed arms and legs, to be buried all together. Chinese beliefs at the time, like those in a lot of other cultures even today, dictate that bodies should be buried whole to rest peacefully in the afterlife. So this gesture might have meant a great deal. It's worth noting that despite the efforts taken to bury these bodies whole, not all the skeletons were complete. One was even missing a head, which might have been taken by the Jiangnu as proof of victory. The Bayon Belag fortress remains the only example of a mass grave from the Han-Jiangnu wars, an enduring reminder of a long-forgotten conflict between two of Asia's most powerful ancient civilizations.