Where does the tomb of Gengis Khan hide?

Its empire stretched from the Pacific to the Caspian Sea, and allowed the Silk Road to become a crucial economic hub. The 33 million square kilometers of territory that they knew knew an unprecedented civilization, including the concepts of diplomatic immunity and religious freedom,
paper banknotes and a reliable postal system. The figure of Gengis Khan is for the population of Mongolia still today a fundamental reference point. But where are his remains resting?

By the same sovereign's desire, it is not known, and the Mongols respect these wills. Tradition wants the death of the emperor in 1227, a mourning army brought his body back to Mongolia, killing anyone on the road. A thousand horses trotted down his tomb to clear every burial post.

REST IN PEACE. In the next 800 years, no one has ever found signs of the tomb; And interest is mostly international, because the Mongols oppose any archaeological expedition that tries to unravel the mystery. It's not so much a question of superstition, as some Western interpretation would want to believe. Rather, finding the ruins would be like breaking his last wish.

It is no coincidence that the first archaeological expedition organized to find the tomb of Genghis Khan - a Mongolian-Japanese project that began in 1990 and concentrated in the province of Khentii, where the king was born - was interrupted by protests by the local population.

ONE YEAR IN THE PAD. Other missions (such as that of National Geographic, with the help of satellite images in Central Asia) have attempted to trace the burial site, but with no striking results. The vastness of the area is one of the reasons. Mongolia has the lowest proportion of people in the world, with 3.2 million people spread over 1,566,000 square kilometers. The population is so scarce to be comparable to that of Greenland, and the boundless territory makes research even harder.

HUNTING OF INDIVIDUALS. Diimaajav Erdenebaatar, head of the Department of Archeology at Ulaanbaatar State University, has been studying the tombs of King Xiongnu since 2001 in the province of central Mongolia in Arkhangai. Some believe that the sovereigns of this nomadic confederacy of Asia were Mongolian ancestors, and that their burial ways could provide guidance on those chosen by Genghis Khan.

These kings were buried in tombs 20 meters below ground, indicated on the surface only by a square of stones. Removing the stones would make it enough to make the tomb with the treasures that it surely contains, unplugable.

IN PLANNING OR MOUNTAIN? As if that was not enough, tradition meant that the emperor had been buried on a mountain in the province of Khentii called Burkhan Khaldun, 160 km Ulaanbaatar. Among the rocks, therefore, not in a plain like the Xiongnu sovereigns, where 1000 horses could have galoped more easily. In addition, in ancient times there were at least five sacred places designated as Burkhan Khaldun (although modern location would seem to be the right one).

In any case, the mountainous area was only accessible to male members of Khan's real offspring, and is now a UNESCO heritage site, off-limits for researchers. The secret to the place where Genghis Khan rests seems destined to last long, perhaps forever.