Explorer Plans Hunt For Genghis Khan's Long-Lost Tomb

Velcroman1 writes "The tomb of brutal Mongolian emperor Genghis Khan — the one who created the world's most powerful empire by raiding and invading across Eurasia, not Kirk's nemesis — is a lost treasure archaeologists have sought for years. And one man thinks he knows where it is. Last fall Alan Nichols, the president of The Explorers Club, mapped out possible locations for the tomb of Khan (also known as Chinnggis Qa'an). His hypothesis: Khan's tomb is located in the Liupan Mountains in Northern China, where the emperor who was born in 1162 and is said to have perished from an arrow wound in August 1227. Next fall, Nichols plans the next phase of his research: pinpointing Khan's exact resting place. 'Ghengis Khan's tomb is my obsession,' Nichols, a noted authority on the emperor, said recently. 'I couldn't stop thinking about it. But I'm not happy just reading about it, or knowing about it. I need to have my feet on it.'"

Re:after all these years

[fredrated]

Phillip of Macedon's tomb was found and identified. Science can do amazing things.

Re:What about Jesus's ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Virtually all historians, whether Christian, atheist or of some other religion, hold that a man Jesus existed, even if his biography is just so much myth accreted around the historical figure.

Re:What about Jesus's ?

[aristotle-dude]

Genghis Khan existed. Jesus not.

That's the difference.

Repeating a fallacy often does not make it true.

Very few reputable scholar who have no axe to grind dispute that there was a historical Jesus figure.

If I had a dime for every time I saw the same thing stated verbatim, I would be a very rich man.

Re:What about Jesus's ?

[TechyImmigrant]

The Wikipedia page talks plenty about how convinced scholars are (who have a vested interest in that answer) but doesn't actually cite any evidence. It doesn't pass the sniff test.
 

Re:This is not the tomb you seek!

[Sique]

Probably because everything Indiana Jones seeks for has religious motives (and I include the aliens in the fourth one into religion) and magical powers. Gengis Khan instead is mainly a historical and political person. If there are any religious connotations around him, then they are without any real relevance to us. Gengis Khan might play a role in shamanistic rituals for mongolian tribes, but the main intended audience of Indiana Jones movies are not mongolians.

Joke all you want

[Dareth]

Joke all you want, but according to a Darwinian fitness perspective he was one of the most successful humans to have ever lived.

Re:after all these years

[HighOrbit]

Your original point still stands, since it was Philip's son also named Philip. Positivly identified and older than Ghengis Khan to boot by about 1,500 years.

This is not as simple

[aepervius]

Most of the initial consensus originally came from the christian historian. Following up historian never really changed that position no matter their belief. All of the "evidence" are actually from textual criticism. IOW "they can't have invented all that story!" : if you scratch down the paint, there is next to no other evidence than that. Even Bart Ehrman (at least until recentely) admitted that it was only "most likely" that Jesus existed.

The ultimate honesty, is to admit in this specigfic case, that we do not know, but most probably a human at the origin of all the myth existed. Anybody telling you there is a "consensus" of historian, really exagerate the case here. There are many historical figure older than jesus for which we have a LOT of physical and written evidence. For jesus ? Nothing practically beyond the bible. Even Josephus is recognized as dubious, most probably a fraud. And nobody else reported the existence of the guy. That said carrier and other "full" mythicist haven't shown anything reliable in the academic arena (and no a book do not count --- peer review do).

Draw you own conclusion. Me after reading a lot of the litterature I am split 60/50. 60% chance he existed, 40% chance it was either a composite (more than 1 persons) or an elaborate myth.

Re:What about Jesus's ?

[alexander_686]

Let’s consider you point. What is your Epistemology in this situation?

Do you reject evolution? It’s got massive holes. There are bits that don’t (yet) make sense. Yet I still believe it because of the strong evidence. The holes take some extrapolation to move from point to point, but the logic to do so is consistent.

Or, let’s choose an example more on point. Should I disbelieve in Socrates? Like Jesus no primary source material exists. None of his writings exist. Should I take the position that he was just the figment of somebody’s imagination?