Ancient Autopsy Season 1 Episode 3

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Transcript

00:00Genghis Khan was the 13th century founder of the largest land empire in history. How then

00:09do we not know how he died? If you delve into the historical sources, the deaths of many an

00:18ancient figure are shrouded in wild theories, myth and intrigue. It's an incredible game of

00:25imperial Cluedo going on. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and I've spent my

00:30career investigating the mysteries of the past, but now I'm traveling thousands

00:34of years back in time to investigate how some of the greatest figures of the

00:38ancient world met their end. From Tutankhamun to Alexander the Great, Genghis

00:45Khan to Cleopatra, I'll be searching for clues in the archaeology, in artifacts and

00:50in ancient texts. This is the first time we see a story of his death where he

00:57is castrated. Helping me to unpick fact from fiction is world-leading forensic

01:03pathologist Dr. Richard Shepherd. Using a cutting-edge digital autopsy table, he

01:09will shed light on the impact of disease, injury and possible foul play on our

01:14famous figures. It causes shock, the blood pressure falls, the heart rate goes up.

01:19This was not the clean death that is so often described in the history books.

01:25I'll be meeting experts at my investigation hub and getting truly hands-on out in the field.

01:31That's great. Look at that.

01:34It's very canes of Ireland.

01:37I'll unearth the latest revelations about these titans of antiquity.

01:41This is a perfect surface to smear some poison.

01:45Genghis Khan is a name that inspires fear in some and devotion in others. But this name,

02:08which means universal ruler and should be pronounced Chinggis Khan, was a later acquisition.

02:15He was born Temujin in 1162 to a poor nomadic family on the vast Mongolian steppe near what is

02:22now the Russian border. Yet from this obscure start, he would become one of the most famous

02:27and infamous leaders in history.

02:32Chinggis Khan is brought up in a very turbulent environment.

02:37There are multiple different clans all fighting each other in that area of Mongolia.

02:44People were captured, they were held hostage, they were traded, they were massacred.

02:49His father's killed at a relatively young age. His wife is abducted and he himself is taken prisoner.

02:56So he has no sense of security. He's under permanent threat.

03:02Chinggis Khan defended himself by going on the attack.

03:07He soon proved to be a gifted military leader, gathering followers, conquering his enemies and

03:13capturing land.

03:13He's fighting military campaigns and he does that year after year, war after war, campaign after campaign.

03:23With an ever-growing horde of nomadic warriors, Chinggis Khan razed cities and toppled empires.

03:32But this brutal warlord was also a brilliant diplomat.

03:36Chinggis Khan- If we study the way that he ruled, it was through alliances, brokering different kinds

03:44of allegiances, allowing different religions to flourish within his court. It was a kind of

03:52mobile diplomacy that extended across vast swathes of land.

03:57Chinggis Khan- The result was a 9 million square ma empire that would eventually stretch from China's

04:06Pacific coast in the east to the river Danube in the west.

04:10Chinggis Khan- If you talk to a Mongolian, of course, he's the founder of the Mongolia nation.

04:24So, Mongolians worship him. But then, of course, if you talk to his enemies or enemy nations,

04:30then he is a monster.

04:32For all his notoriety, Chinggis Khan's final chapter remains unwritten. Why is the fate of

04:42one of the most legendary figures in history still a mystery?

04:48The best place to begin any investigation into the cause of death is with the body.

04:55But in Chinggis Khan's case, this crucial piece of evidence is missing.

04:59Chinggis Khan- His burial site was hidden and has never been found, probably because

05:06the people closest to him never wanted anyone to find out how he died.

05:13What is valued in the Mongolian tradition is that soul, rather than the body or bone,

05:19bone means nothing.

05:23In fact, it's kind of blasphemous to talk about his death,

05:26because he's still considered to be in eternal heaven, protecting the Mongol nation today.

05:37With no body, we need to focus on what we do know about Chinggis Khan,

05:42to see if his life may hold a clue to his death.

05:48Helping me find out more is historian Dr. Nicholas Morton,

05:51and he's brought a clue to the investigation hub.

05:56Nick, tell me about this. What do we have here?

05:59This is a high saddle of the kind used by Central Asian nomads.

06:04And these saddles are very specifically designed.

06:08It's about being able to ride for long distances, but it's also about providing a great deal of support

06:13in battle when shooting.

06:15OK, so that's why it's so deep, is to create the greater sense of security.

06:20That's right, just to hold you in, absolutely, yeah. And a little bit of extra height as well.

06:24So, what does this have to tell us about the kind of horse culture of the Mongols?

06:30They're nomadic, so they move from seasonal grazing ground, seasonal grazing ground.

06:35They hunt in the saddle, and they hunt all the time. This is absolutely part of the Mongol culture,

06:41and in war, they're riding throughout their military campaigns. So,

06:46there's very few elements of their culture that don't involve riding in many ways.

06:51We have reports saying that children are put in the saddle from as early as

06:54two or three years old. And then from then on until the day you die, you're in the saddle.

07:01And then you're buried with it to serve you in the afterlife.

07:03Oh, wow.

07:05This is a nomadic culture. It's an equestrian culture, and life in the saddle is life.

07:12It makes sense that Genghis Khan's death was connected to his nomadic equestrian lifestyle.

07:18But how exactly?

07:19To find out, I'm turning to the earliest known account of his death,

07:27the secret history of the Mongols.

07:31The secret history is a chronicle of the life and times of Genghis Khan. And it was written

07:38after his death, probably by someone who was intimately involved with his court, so maybe a relative.

07:45And then several pages later, we learn about his death. Just out of the blue, it's announced that he dies.

08:05Could something as simple as a fall from his horse have been the cause of the great Khan's death?

08:10Dr. Richard Sheppard is a world-leading forensic pathologist who has carried out over 23,000 post-mortem examinations.

08:26Using a digital anatomy table, he can dissect virtual human bodies, peeling back layers of tissue, muscle,

08:33and bone to analyse the consequences of a riding accident.

08:41A fall from the horse could always be fatal, depending on the injuries that are caused.

08:46But travelling at pace, caught unawares, those injuries are much more likely to be fatal.

08:53Injuries from a fall from the horse can, of course, occur anywhere on the body, depending how the person lands.

09:03But the abdomen is particularly interesting, because there are so many organs compressed into such a small space.

09:11On the right-hand side, there's the massive liver, which is easily lacerated or ripped apart by an impact with the ground.

09:17The same applies to the spleen, which is on the left-hand side of the body, just tucked underneath the ribs.

09:24And that's often associated with those rib fractures.

09:27The bowel itself can be damaged by pressure and twisting, causing it to burst.

09:33But perhaps most importantly are the injuries that are caused when the spine acts as an anvil,

09:41and a blow from the front compresses the organs between the spine at the back and the abdominal wall at the front,

09:48causing the injuries which will often rupture the bowel.

09:52And all of these things can lead to death, either quickly or slowly.

09:57It's clear that a fall from a horse for a 60-year-old medieval man could have proved fatal.

10:08But would a man who spent his whole life in the saddle take a tumble so easily?

10:14So, given that Genghis Khan is such a horseman, such an equestrian,

10:18what do you make of the idea that he might have died from a fall from a horse?

10:24The source itself does talk about Genghis Khan taking a fall whilst hunting,

10:30but he spent his entire life, possibly as many as six decades, riding.

10:36Why did he fall? Maybe the saddle itself let him down. We don't actually know.

10:41I imagine, well, for a start, that perhaps they fell often.

10:45I mean, even if they're expert horsemen, just by sheer probability,

10:49the number of hours a day they're spending in the saddle,

10:51I guess it's how quickly you get back up that's the key to your success.

10:55But the other key thing you've said is his age.

10:59So, if he has been riding for that long, he's that old,

11:03then a fall is potentially going to do more serious damage than it would when he was 20.

11:08Yes, you'd have thought so.

11:10So, it is possible as a cause of death,

11:13even if the source is rather sort of, it glosses over it a bit.

11:17He takes a fall whilst hunting, but it's a year or so before he died.

11:22There is a long time between the accident happening and his death.

11:28There is a bit of a conundrum there.

11:29So, it's possible, but not decisive.

11:32Absolutely.

11:32I'm wondering what might explain this conundrum.

11:38This year-long gap between Chinggis Khan's injury and his death.

11:43A closer reading of the secret history of the Mongols does offer one potential tiny clue.

11:51It says that on the night after his injury, Chinggis Khan's flesh was hot.

11:56When considering the death of Chinggis Khan, the words that are really important to me are

12:02that his flesh became hot, which hints to me that he must have developed an infection and a fever.

12:12In an age before antibiotics, an infection might linger for months,

12:18which could explain the gap between his injury and his death.

12:22But this theory depends on the accuracy of the source.

12:31The Secret History of the Mongols is not a history book.

12:35It's not history in a proper sort of Western or even in the Chinese sense.

12:40It's a collection of legends.

12:44It's a completion of stories.

12:46And the whole purpose is to celebrate his life for his descendants.

12:53If you understand the Mongolian term for history, it means selection.

12:58So, tugh, in Mongolian tugh, tugh means selection.

13:02You pick up those important things, important for whatever story you want to tell,

13:07any moral you want to sort of draw. You tell them for that purpose. That's true. That is history.

13:18It's likely then that the story of the fall from his horse was selected for a purpose.

13:24But what purpose?

13:25I think it's worth being aware of the agendas people may well have brought to bear when explaining Genghis Khan's death.

13:34For some, it will have been an attempt to show a reverential approach to his death,

13:40to reflect his reputation and his career as an enormous empire builder.

13:47And they're writing from a position where they want to show him as this enormously influential historical figure.

13:53It seems to me that it's almost acceptable to think of Genghis as dying on his horse,

14:03because that's the most honourable picture that would want to be portrayed of him by those who revered him afterwards.

14:13You know, dying as a great leader reinforces his power.

14:18It seems to me the secret history's account of Genghis Khan's death is more fantasy than fact.

14:27Invented to glorify a man, its writer revered as ordained by the gods.

14:33And that begs the question, if the story is fiction, what truth is it hiding?

14:48Genghis Khan lived and maybe died in the saddle.

15:03The earliest written account of his death suggests he died as a result of a fatal riding injury.

15:08And the pathology confirms that a fall from his horse could have been deadly, especially if followed by sepsis.

15:14But I suspect the account is fundamentally flawed, more propaganda than a fact.

15:25Fortunately, there is another account of Genghis Khan's final moments.

15:29Written by the medieval world's most celebrated traveller.

15:33One of the various people who tells the story of Genghis Khan's death is Marco Polo,

15:39the famous Venetian traveller who set out for the Mongol Empire and later on entered Mongol service.

15:46He too showed a curiosity about Genghis Khan and his death.

15:51According to Marco Polo, Genghis Khan was killed on campaign against a rival dynasty known as the Western Shia.

15:58We know from Marco Polo's records that Genghis Khan had died in battle on his horse from an arrow wound to his knee.

16:10Other accounts confirm Genghis Khan's last battle took place in 1227 against the Western Shia in what is now Northwest China.

16:19So Marco Polo's version of events seems historically plausible.

16:24But was it technically possible?

16:27Would a 60-year-old ruler revered as a god really have been exposed to enemy fire?

16:35Thankfully, I have never ventured near a battlefield.

16:38But from everything I've read, medieval battlefields could be frenzied, chaotic, bloody affairs.

16:45In that maelstrom, if an arrow wound was, as Marco Polo suggests, part of the great Khan's final days,

16:52then it seems to me that the nature of Mongol warfare could be key to understanding the truth behind his fate.

17:07Mike Lodes has spent decades studying the art of Mongolian archery.

17:14So, how much power is there in one of these shots?

17:21Can you draw this back enough so that when it's loosed, it can penetrate a man's body?

17:27Oh, goodness, yes. First of all, you can have a go.

17:29So, there's a bow. That's it. So far, so good.

17:36Just need an arrow now.

17:37Yeah, that's the tricky bit. You put it on this side and that's called the knock, that little groove.

17:42And the power of a bow is simply the power of the spring, which is the speed at which it returns.

17:51So, the more power and drawing back, the faster the arrow will go.

17:56Oh, that's looking good. That's good. There you go.

17:59And remember, you're jiggling about on a horse and you're moving about.

18:03Yeah, this is easy.

18:08Oh, goodness me. Okay.

18:10That's that. That is the tricky bit.

18:11It is the tricky bit.

18:12I don't... That is the tricky bit.

18:16Come on, woman. I'm like, don't worry.

18:19I'll be there in a second. Just trying to put the arrow on.

18:21Okay. You're looking good. Pull it all the way back. Pull it back.

18:24Oh, looking great. That's great.

18:26Look at that. And you... Did you hear the punch that went in?

18:29Yeah. Yeah.

18:30So, that tells you, compared to the other one, the...

18:32You had more power because you pulled it back further.

18:35Ah.

18:35So, the type of bow that the Mongols were using...

18:39Yes.

18:40...is six to seven times this power.

18:44Wow.

18:46Good looking good.

18:49Nice.

18:49Nice. That was a really wonderful thwack.

18:52I enjoyed that.

18:57Okay, so now I understand how the Mongols' enemies could have been shot with an arrow,

19:02but Marco Polo says that Genghis Khan was shot in the knee.

19:07Now, how could that have happened?

19:09Well, I mean, it technically could happen on the battlefield,

19:12but I think it's most likely that it happened in a siege

19:16where you're going to be quite close to the archers on the wall.

19:23Mongol warcraft evolves very rapidly over time.

19:28And one particular area is in siege warfare.

19:32Particularly from China, they pick up the use of siege catapults,

19:37the use of siege crossbows, which they can mount in their wagons.

19:42When they conquered one city, they would round up all the able-bodied people from that city

19:47and march them to the next one, and then force them to run against the walls of the city they're attacking.

19:54And the defenders will then shoot them down with arrows and crossbows and catapults.

20:01But by the time that all these people have been killed, they've run out of ammunition.

20:06I want to put the Mongols in and their actual siege troops to take the city as a whole.

20:12But even in the chaos and violence of a Mongol siege,

20:16it's hard to imagine their leader could have been caught in the crossfire.

20:19What if Genghis Khan was wearing armour? Surely he would have been protected.

20:28He had the option to be protected. He's unlikely to have bothered to protect his knees.

20:32It would not surprise me that he went to the front lines unarmoured.

20:37It would surprise me that he didn't have chest armour on riding into battle.

20:41But I think inspecting the troops, possibly at dusk, going forward,

20:46would... No, he wouldn't feel vulnerable. Very easily got by an enemy sniper.

20:51Now, the kind of arrowhead they might have used would be something like this,

20:55this sort of lozenge shape. You'll see it has... That one's not too sharp.

21:01It's going to hurt, though. It's going to hurt.

21:03It could get through leather, because the idea of it is that it cuts.

21:08So you can see how easy these are to sharpen.

21:14Obviously, most of the armour is leather armour,

21:17so a cutting edge is ideal for a leather armour.

21:21If you hold that... And let's...

21:25Ooh, yeah. Look at that.

21:26You know, that has punched through...

21:28That's more effective! Look at that!

21:29...really quite effectively.

21:32And shot from a powerful bow. A really powerful bow.

21:36Something that's got something like 140, 160 pounds draw weight.

21:41That would punch so hard, you've got a flying razor blade

21:46that could go through leather armour.

21:47Well, so you're saying it's a plausible place to be struck by an arrow.

21:51Yes.

21:52But presumably, therefore, not hitting any vital internal organs.

21:57So how could it possibly lead to his death?

21:59The Mongols, the Tanguts, the Shih, all used poison arrows.

22:04It's widespread in those cultures.

22:07And this is a perfect surface to smear some poison.

22:12Aconite is the most likely type of poison.

22:15It's what we call wolf's bane or monk's hood.

22:19It paralyses you. It will kill you in the right dose.

22:22This will introduce it into the bloodstream.

22:25So I think a poison arrow in the knee, that could do it.

22:34A poison arrow is a compelling possibility.

22:38But there's no mention of poison in Marco Polo's account or in any other source.

22:43And that leaves me wondering whether there's a less exotic but equally deadly explanation.

22:51Could an arrow to the knee have caused the hot flesh described in the secret history?

22:59Forensic pathologist Dr. Richard Shepard is using 3D technology to peer inside the body

23:06and assess the impact of such an injury.

23:11In sanitary conditions of any battlefield with horse manure and blood and mud around you,

23:18is the possibility of infection.

23:21That wouldn't kill you immediately.

23:23But the spread of infection into the joint space, into the knee, leading to a septic arthritis,

23:30would have resulted in the pre-antibiotic era in a very slow and painful death.

23:39But other than that one brief reference to fever, there's no mention in any account

23:44of Chinggis Khan suffering a prolonged illness before his death.

23:51Could there be another way for an injury to the knee to prove fatal?

23:56The anatomy of the knee is really quite complicated.

24:01Around the knee is the ligaments that support it.

24:05There's the patella at the front.

24:07There's the tibia at the bottom and the femur at the top.

24:11But crucially, around the back of the knee, is this major blood vessel called the popliteal artery.

24:20And the popliteal artery carries a huge amount of blood.

24:24And so damage to that by the arrow head, or the arrow would have caused immediate torrential hemorrhage.

24:33The pathology proves it is possible Chinggis Khan died from an arrow wound.

24:37Whether from loss of blood at the time, or infection sometime later.

24:43And my short and less than brilliant career as an archer tells me an arrow had the power

24:49to penetrate Mongol armour, and mortally injure their leader.

24:54But the textual evidence is less convincing.

24:57It really depends on whether you actually believe in the Marco Polo story or not.

25:06Some say it is fabrication, some say he probably never actually visited.

25:13But the real question is whether we should really take his words,

25:17which is not reliable, which is not authenticated, as something solid, as a piece of evidence.

25:24So I don't know what we should make of it.

25:31I do know Marco Polo was a storyteller, not a historian.

25:36His rambling account blends fact with fiction.

25:39Placing real historical characters alongside giants and dog-headed men.

25:47So it wouldn't surprise me if Marco Polo confused or conflated events.

25:53Chinggis Khan did suffer from an arrow wound in 1212, but that's 15 years before his death.

25:59So it seems likely that he is in some way reflecting that information,

26:04although it seems unlikely that was what killed him.

26:09Chinggis Khan spent so much time on the battlefield that at first glance,

26:12an arrow wound seems like a likely cause of death.

26:16But the only source that records it is Marco Polo, and he is writing a century later.

26:21It's not in the Mongol sources at all.

26:25Then there's the timing.

26:27The sources all agree Chinggis Khan died in 1227,

26:31but the only other record of him being shot by an arrow is more than 10 years earlier.

26:37But there is another theory that might explain his death.

26:42And it's far more sensational and far more intimate.

26:46I think we need to get off the battlefield and into the bedroom.

26:56I think we need to get off the battlefield.

26:59I think we need to get off the battlefield.

27:05Chinggis Khan ruled over the largest land empire the world has ever seen.

27:11In the process, he razed cities, wiped out entire civilizations,

27:15and killed as many as 60 million people.

27:19So there can be no doubt that the Mongol overlord had more than a few enemies.

27:23And it is those enemies that are behind the most dramatic scenario so far in our investigation

27:30of the world.

27:31It is the cause of Chinggis Khan's death, murder that happened not on the battlefield, but in the bedroom.

27:40In 1227, Chinggis Khan was fighting against a rival dynasty, the Western Shia, in what is now northwest

27:47China. He could, as Marco Polo suggests, have been killed in battle. But there is another account in which he was victorious

27:58only for disaster to then strike.

28:02The precious summary is a book written by a direct descendant of Chinggis Khan.

28:09The book records how Chinggis Khan captured and killed the Western Shia king.

28:17And before his death, the king told Chinggis Khan, if you take my wife as your concubine, that's fine,

28:25but you need to be careful. She was captured. They went to bed. And then he said that she harmed Chinggis Khan's body.

28:33And he felt sick. And then thereafter, he died.

28:40Murder in the bedroom at the hands of a vengeful widow seems like something straight out of a soap opera.

28:48But it's also rather cryptic. It doesn't tell me how Chinggis Khan was killed.

28:54So with historian Dr Jonathan Dugdale, I'm visiting Cambridge University.

28:58Jonathan, I am very excited about this.

29:05He's offered to show me an original manuscript of the precious summary.

29:10So this is the Erdineen Tauch, the precious summary. And it's a 17th century Mongol text. It's like a

29:18foundation myth for the Mongolian people. And it tells the story of them through the lens of

29:25Buddhist cosmology and the life of Chinggis Khan. And what does it have to say about Chinggis Khan's

29:32death? Well, it has a very interesting story about Chinggis Khan's death. It's a very euphemistic

29:39story. During the campaign, Chinggis Khan is sieging the city of Lingzhang. And what eventually happens

29:47is he kills the final emperor and takes his wife as a prize of war. His wife is called Goebelch.

29:56And in the words of the text, when they went to bed, she harmed his golden body, which caused his

30:02sickness. A lot of people have read it as she castrated him.

30:08Okay.

30:14Castration would have been horribly painful and traumatic, but would it have been deadly?

30:21By using 3D anatomy technology, Dr. Richard Shepard can assess the potential impact of castration.

30:28This is certainly not an injury for the faint-hearted. And as any man would admit, it's not high up on the

30:38list of the ways they would choose to die. It's one of the rarer injuries I've ever seen. And it's

30:45seldom fatal on its own. The removal of the genitalia with a sharp knife on someone staying still is not

30:53difficult. But if the person is fighting or struggling, other injuries can be performed.

30:59And they may be far more serious than the removal of the genitalia themselves. Mainly because next to the

31:07genitalia are major blood vessels, the femoral artery and the femoral vein. And damage to either of those

31:15blood vessels causes torrential hemorrhage that is likely to lead to death very quickly indeed.

31:23Genghis Khan could have been killed by castration and its side effects. But was he?

31:32So tell me about this as a source. How reliable was this? What are the circumstances in which it was produced?

31:39So the precious summary was written by a Mongolian scholar called Sagan Seton in the 17th century.

31:48So it's produced 400 years after Genghis Khan's death?

31:53Yes.

31:54How trustworthy is it then?

31:56Well, the source is based on an earlier text called the golden summary. But what's interesting

32:04is in the golden summary, the section about Genghis Khan's death is almost verbatim the same as the

32:12precious summary. Except for the fact it doesn't mention that it was Goebel who

32:19harmed Genghis Khan. It just says he died. So the crucial line is missing?

32:26The crucial line is missing from the original source, yeah.

32:32Well, that seems very important. So what...

32:34Is there any reason why a line like that would have been added? Does it discredit Genghis Khan in some way?

32:41I mean, it feels a bit degrading.

32:44Certainly from our perspective, it seems like the idea of castration and being bested by a woman would be

32:53emasculating for Genghis Khan.

32:54I mean, literally in this case.

32:55Yeah, quite literally. But if we think about it in the context of the time, neither of those things

33:03would have been viewed in the same way. So if we start by talking about castration...

33:07Great start to a conversation. If we start by talking about castration, in Chinese history,

33:13the court was often largely run by eunuchs. So it wasn't kind of counter to masculinity, as it were.

33:20So power, military skill, political acumen, turns out testosterone not necessary.

33:26Exactly, yeah. It wasn't seen as a necessary part. And I mean, in terms of his virility,

33:34that was already well proven. Genghis Khan had many sons already by this stage.

33:39He doesn't lose anything in terms of his masculinity in the act of castration.

33:45And what about this idea about being bested by a woman? You said that's not problematic either.

33:49Not necessarily. There's a huge number of examples of Mongolian women who were politicians, warriors.

33:58So if we have the sense then that it's not at all humiliating that Genghis Khan had this end,

34:04does it actually contribute something? I think this may be one of those things where

34:09it's a good story. And in the vacuum of solid evidence of how he died, it's often the good stories

34:18that come to the fore. So I don't think I'm reading between the lines too much to conclude that you

34:25don't think it's actually what happened. When you think of someone who has the history that

34:29Genghis Khan has, him dying of sickness, a heart attack, falling off his horse, whatever the story is,

34:38it doesn't have perhaps the glamour of the life that he led. And so you need to add an ending that

34:45matched the life that has been lived. Yeah, I think so, yeah.

34:47The murder story simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny. It's based on just one account written 400 years

34:58after Genghis Khan's death. And this makes no mention of castration, just harm. It seems to me the

35:06castration theory is fantasy rather than historical fact. So I'm ruling out an assassin and turning my

35:15attention to a very different suspect.

35:29In my investigation into Genghis Khan's death so far, I've learned that a fatal injury on a hunt,

35:48in battle or at the hands of an assassin was scientifically possible, but historically hard

35:53to substantiate. So what if there's something that's not in the historical accounts? Something

35:59that only modern science could possibly reveal?

36:07For writers describing the death of Genghis Khan, it must have been very tempting to present it as

36:12an epic showdown surrounded by the bodies of the fallen, or perhaps a spiritual event. But actually,

36:19for many rulers in this era, disease is by far the most likely cause of death.

36:26The Mongol Empire spread enormous distances across the steppe and beyond, and it came across hugely

36:34different kinds of people that it incorporated into its empire. And along with that kind of incorporation

36:40came the spread of diseases and illnesses.

36:43We have various sources that describe him as dying from illness or disease.

36:51Rashid al-Din in his world history describes illnesses being Genghis Khan's cause of death.

36:56Some other Middle Eastern sources also suggest that that was the reason for his death as well.

37:02In my research, I've discovered there is one disease that's repeatedly linked to the Mongols,

37:06the plague, or as it was known in the Middle Ages, the Black Death.

37:13One of the key phenomena associated with the Mongol Empire and its enormous geographical scope across

37:19so much of Eurasia is the Mongols' role in spreading the Black Death.

37:25Inadvertently, it has to be said, but several historians have made a case for saying,

37:30well, perhaps the movement of Mongol merchants and messengers and armies across the continent,

37:35maybe that played a role in the spread of the Black Death.

37:42To find out more about this possible link between the Mongols and the plague,

37:47and its implications for the death of Genghis Khan,

37:49I've invited medical historian Kevin Goodman to the Investigation Hub.

37:53When we talk about the plague, what are the symptoms? What does it feel like to experience it?

38:04You begin to get feverish, and then you begin to feel the pain.

38:09You begin to feel a really, really painful swelling, mobbing your neck, mobbing your groin,

38:15and these are agonies. You're rolling in the bed or in the floor in agony,

38:20and these are getting bigger and bigger. You cannot touch them. You're becoming delirious.

38:26There is no way you can get any respite. And it gets worse and worse.

38:31This is a really undignified, horrible death.

38:35And what's the lethality rate of the plague? What proportion of people who get it will die?

38:41Well, we do know that in the 14th century, one third of the population of Europe were killed.

38:47That's huge. That's massive. One third of the population.

38:54But what exactly was the plague? And how might it have infected Genghis Khan?

39:02Bubonic plague is caused by a specific bacterium called Yersinia pestis.

39:06And Yersinia pestis really likes travelling through the lymphatic system of the body.

39:12We have arteries and veins carrying the blood to and from the heart, but we have this third system,

39:17the lymphatic system, which drains the lymph, the fluid that helps fight infection.

39:23And that goes everywhere in the body. And as it spreads throughout the body,

39:28it forms these little nodules or sort of stations where the body can fight infections.

39:34These nodules are everywhere called lymph nodes. In bubonic plague though, these get bigger and bigger

39:41and bigger to form great big lumps in the neck and in the groin all over the body called buboes.

39:47Hence the name of the disease, bubonic plague.

39:52Bubonic plague is a disease that's carried on rats and fleas, and it can be transmitted to humans or animals.

40:01Nowadays, there are still outbreaks of plague around the world. And these are usually treated

40:06successfully with antibiotics. But in Khan's day, of course, there were no antibiotics.

40:12The mortality of the bubonic plague was high. And if he caught it, there was a very,

40:19very high chance that he would have died.

40:21It seems that even the mighty Khan may not have been able to escape a disease as devastating as plague.

40:33But when and where might he have been infected?

40:37You've got to imagine the context really, that someone like Genghis Khan, his empire in its main

40:43centers, comprised of huge wagon cities. We're talking about thousands of wagons. In the center of

40:52these huge wagon cities, you've got these massive great tents. These tents will be able to accommodate

40:59thousands of people. And then beyond that, millions of horses, sheep and other animals,

41:05which form part of the Mongols' house.

41:09So, Kevin, is there any sense that this great moving city of the Mongols would have been a place

41:17in which plague and other diseases would have festered?

41:20Where there are large numbers of humans, you're going to find rodents, rats, mice. They're drawn to humans.

41:31And if we think of this massive, moving city, carrying their own supplies, no rodent, in its right mind,

41:40is going to turn that down. It's going to be a magnet.

41:44So, the situation in which Genghis Khan was living was one that made him particularly susceptible

41:51to this kind of contagious disease?

41:53Yeah. He's in his mid-sixties. He may have been injured before, we don't know.

41:58Immune system may have been impaired, we don't know. If he's living in circumstances

42:03where there may be rodents that have been carrying yersinia pestis, they've had fleas feed on them,

42:11and then those fleas go into people, and then you've got body lice also feed on those people,

42:16and you've got the spread of body lice and fleas. Yeah, he's at risk.

42:23But how real was that risk? According to my research, the first official reports of the Black Death

42:30appear in Sicily in 1347. That's over 4,000 miles from Genghis Khan's last campaign,

42:38and more importantly, it's over 100 years after his death.

42:44The bubonic plague really becomes obvious from about 1340 onwards. That's 110-15 years

42:51after Genghis Khan's death, but historians are increasingly using bioarchaeological methods

42:58to establish whether the Black Death was around a lot earlier than has been claimed previously.

43:02The analysis of the DNA that has been found in skeletons

43:10from the 14th century that revealed the plague, I found that it's very similar to the plague DNA

43:17in marmots, which are indigenous rodent species in Mongolia.

43:23Yeah. Okay, so this is exciting new research. It is.

43:27Because suddenly now we've got new technology that's starting to reveal the pattern of disease

43:33in the past. Yeah.

43:36This research traces the bubonic plague from Europe back to Genghis Khan's territory.

43:41Which strongly suggests that this is where the Black Death originated.

43:53But how can we reach the conclusion that this is what caused him to die?

43:58Recent research has suggested there may have been an outbreak of a serious disease illness

44:08that caused a lot of deaths in China in 1220s, 1230s, around the same time Genghis dies.

44:17Also, in the Islamic countries that border the Mongolian area, there were reports of people having

44:26headaches, fevers, pains in their armpits, which is synonymous with plague.

44:34In other words, we can perhaps infer that this is something that is around, because we've got

44:40evidence of it all around Mongolian empire. So, in the end, do you think we can say with any

44:47probability that Genghis Khan died of this disease?

44:52As we become more familiar with the analysing of DNA, we may find skeletons that date from that period,

45:00and then we can really gather more information.

45:03So, it makes it probable that it's not a smoking gun?

45:08We may find we may be wrong. That's always a possibility.

45:11But I think what it's revealed is so exciting.

45:15Future DNA discoveries may push back the origin of plague to before Genghis Khan's death in 1227.

45:29But right now, the dates don't quite add up.

45:41So, what really killed Genghis Khan? Was it his battle wounds? Was it illness?

45:57Was it a fall from his horse? Or was it a very painful assassination?

46:02I think I've found enough evidence to rule out murder, and not enough to include plague.

46:10Which leaves an injury, possibly followed by infection, caused either by a fall from a horse,

46:17or an enemy arrow. If I had to choose, I'd say a fall from a horse is the least problematic conclusion.

46:24A simple end, that's somehow fitting for a man who lived his life in the saddle.

46:38Like the Ãre in the saddle.

46:41Which leads to the pain in the saddle.

46:42And with big bodies also known as a cancer being in the saddle.

46:44To be osoby that feeds us.

46:46But most likely people live in the saddle.

46:49Because theyuckTC that they've released a anytime precautions where they change their lives into the air.

46:50Each ciel is после India.

46:52The wonder is no hanging the other way.

46:54It mustonlyics that they use paranoia in the mountain ...

46:57Which is just indigenous to you.

46:58What do others currently have lived, the ones they have lived through...

47:01Which is the carnish of Lehman's...

47:02How does it go to Basis Khan에게?

47:04I think you were passionate about this.

47:05Which is important, posing as professionals.

47:07You

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