Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to The Conversation, climate change is driving modern day Mongolians to loot long buried treasures accumulated by Ghengis Khan’s empire.
Climate change and looters threaten the archaeology of Mongolia
The history and archaeology of Mongolia, most famously the sites associated with the largest land empire in the history of the world under Ghengis Khan, are of global importance. But they’re facing unprecedented threats as climate change and looting impact ancient sites and collections.
Climate change and looting may seem to be unrelated issues. But deteriorating climate and environmental conditions result in decreased grazing potential and loss of profits for the region’s many nomadic herders. Paired with a general economic decline, herders and other Mongolians are having to supplement their incomes, turning to alternative ways of making money. For some, it’s searching for ancient treasures to sell on the illegal antiquities market.
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The looting of archaeological sites in Mongolia has been happening for a very long time. Regional archaeologists have shared anecdotes of finding skeletons with break-in tools made from deer antlers in shafts of 2,000 year old royal tombs in central Mongolia. These unlucky would-be thieves risked the unstable sands collapsing in the shafts above them for a chance at riches, not long after the royal leaders had been buried there.
But many recent pits dug directly into burial sites around Mongolia, some that are more than 3,000 years old, suggest modern day looting is on the rise. For the untrained looter, any rock feature has the potential to contain valuable goods and so grave after grave is torn apart. Many of these will contain no more than human and animal bones.
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Read more: https://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-looters-threaten-the-archaeology-of-mongolia-91853
The climate change afflicting Mongolia is extreme cold.
Mongolia has seen some hideously cold winters recently, such as the winter of 2016, and this year’s winter, which led a few weeks ago to the Red Cross releasing disaster relief for stricken nomadic herders.
No doubt yet another case of global warming causing extreme cold.
Oh so it was climate change that caused those ancient tomb raids in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings? and in many other cultures
If the Climate were to change back, would the Mongolians leave the treasure in the ground?
The UN still has other people’s money. Get a grant.
This happened in ancient Egypt, guess it must have been those gas guzzling chariots.