Registration REQUIRED by 12pm on March 21, 2025 in order to attend this event.
Please join the Harriman Institute for the first installment of the Inner Eurasia Colloquium: a lecture by Dotno Pount. Moderated by James Meador.
Political sovereignty across Mongol space was dominated for centuries by the descendants of Chinggis Khan. At the core of these Chinggisid dominions was a ritual tradition that positioned itself as their center. The Cult of Chinggis Khan is a set of wagon-mounted shrines in Inner Mongolia, kept by hereditary priestly custodian lineages known as the Darkhad. The latter trace their founding moment to a decree by Kublai Khan (r. 1260-1294) at the heyday of the Mongol Empire. While there are sufficient textual sources from the early centuries of this shrine’s existence to construct its history, even if they are not as many as the last three centuries, there is a middle “Dark Period” from the late 14th through early 16th century during which no contemporary written sources are available. In this talk, Dr. Pount will present her newest research on what we can learn about the cult’s existence, Mongol elite culture, and ideology from Chinese sources contemporary to the so-called “Dark Period.”
Dotno Pount received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2023, where she defended her dissertation on the medieval history of the Cult of Chinggis Khan under Prof. Chris Atwood’s supervision. She also prepared a complete critical edition and translation into English of the Altan Bichig, which is the body of liturgies passed down in manuscripts by the Darkhad lineages of Ordos, the hereditary custodians of the Cult of Chinggis Khan. She is currently a Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Delaware, teaching courses about Mongolia, Inner Asia, and China.
The Inner Eurasia Colloquium is a showcase for new scholarship on the Asian borderlands of Russia and the former Soviet Union.
