Ancient Autopsy Season 01 Episode 03

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Ancient Autopsy Season 01 Episode 03 #Cineva USA https://www.dailymotion.com/Cineva

Transcript

00:00I spent my career investigating the mysteries of the past but now I'm

00:03traveling thousands of years back in time to investigate how some of the

00:07greatest figures of the ancient world met their end. From Tutankhamun to

00:13Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan to Cleopatra, I'll be searching for clues in

00:18the archaeology, in artifacts and in ancient texts. This is the first time we

00:24see a story of his death where he is castrated. Helping me to unpick fact

00:31from fiction is world-leading forensic pathologist Dr. Richard Shepherd. Using a

00:36cutting-edge digital autopsy table he will shed light on the impact of disease,

00:41injury and possible foul play on our famous figures. It causes shock, the

00:47blood pressure falls, the heart rate goes up. This was not the clean death that is

00:53so often described in the history books. I'll be meeting experts at my

00:57investigation hub and getting truly hands-on out in the field. That's great!

01:03Look at that! This barricades of Ireland. I'll unearth the latest revelations about

01:09these titans of antiquity. This is a perfect surface to smear some poison.

01:16Genghis Khan is a name that inspires fear in some and devotion in others. But this name, which means

01:39universal ruler and should be pronounced Genghis Khan, was a later acquisition.

01:45He was born Temujin in 1162 to a poor nomadic family on the vast Mongolian steppe near what is

01:52now the Russian border. Yet from this obscure start, he would become one of the most famous

01:57and infamous leaders in history.

02:02Genghis Khan is brought up in a very turbulent environment. There are multiple different clans

02:09all fighting each other in that area of Mongolia.

02:14People were captured. They were held hostage. They were traded. They were massacred.

02:20His father's killed at a relatively young age. His wife is abducted and he himself is taken prisoner.

02:26So he has no sense of security. He's under permanent threat.

02:32Genghis Khan defended himself by going on the attack.

02:37He soon proved to be a gifted military leader, gathering followers, conquering his enemies and

02:43capturing land.

02:45He's fighting military campaigns and he does that year after year, war after war, campaign after campaign.

02:51With an ever-growing horde of nomadic warriors, Genghis Khan raised cities and toppled empires.

03:02But this brutal warlord was also a brilliant diplomat.

03:06If we study the way that he ruled, it was through alliances, brokering different kinds of allegiances,

03:16allowing different religions to flourish within his court.

03:21It was a kind of mobile diplomacy that extended across vast swathes of land.

03:27The result was a 9 million square mile empire that would eventually stretch from China's Pacific

03:37coast in the east to the river Danube in the west.

03:40If you talk to a Mongolian, of course, he's the founder of the Mongolia nation.

03:54So Mongolians worship him.

03:56But then, of course, if you talk to his enemies or enemy nation, then he is a monster.

04:02For all his notoriety, Genghis Khan's final chapter remains unwritten.

04:11Why is the fate of one of the most legendary figures in history still a mystery?

04:18The best place to begin any investigation into the cause of death is with the body.

04:25But in Genghis Khan's case, this crucial piece of evidence is missing.

04:29His burial site was hidden and has never been found, probably because the people closest to him

04:38never wanted anyone to find out how he died.

04:43What is valued in the Mongolian tradition is that soul, rather than the body or bone,

04:48bone means nothing.

04:53In fact, it's kind of blasphemous to talk about his death,

04:56because he's still considered to be in eternal heaven, protecting the Mongol nation today.

05:07With no body, we need to focus on what we do know about Genghis Khan,

05:12to see if his life may hold a clue to his death.

05:18Helping me find out more is historian Dr. Nicholas Morton,

05:21and he's brought a clue to the investigation hub.

05:26Nick, tell me about this. What do we have here?

05:29This is a high saddle of the kind used by Central Asian nomads.

05:34And these saddles are very specifically designed.

05:38It's about being able to ride for long distances, but it's also about providing a great deal of support

05:43in battle, when shooting.

05:45OK, so that's why it's so deep, is to create the greater sense of security.

05:50That's right, just to hold you in, absolutely, yeah. And a little bit of extra height as well.

05:54So, what does this have to tell us about the kind of horse culture of the Mongols?

06:00They're nomadic, so they move from seasonal grazing ground, seasonal grazing ground.

06:05They hunt in the saddle, and they hunt all the time.

06:08And this is absolutely part of the Mongol culture. And in war, they're riding throughout their

06:14military campaigns. So there's very few elements of their culture that don't involve riding in

06:19many ways. We have reports saying that children are put in the saddle from as early as two or

06:25three years old. And then from then on until the day you die, you're in the saddle. And then you're

06:32buried with it to serve you in the afterlife. Oh, wow.

06:34This is a nomadic culture. It's equestrian culture. And life in the saddle is life.

06:42It makes sense that Chinggis Khan's death was connected to his nomadic,

06:46equestrian lifestyle. But how exactly?

06:54To find out, I'm turning to the earliest known account of his death,

06:57the secret history of the Mongols.

06:59The secret history is a chronicle of the life and times of Chinggis Khan. And it was written

07:08after his death, probably by someone who was intimately involved with his court,

07:13so maybe a relative.

07:15It is actually recorded that Chinggis Khan got wounded by falling from a horse.

07:22And then several pages later, we learn about his death. Just out of the blue, it's announced that he dies.

07:35Could something as simple as a fall from his horse have been the cause of the great Khan's death?

07:41With so little evidence and no body to examine, I'm turning to Dr. Richard Shepard.

07:48He's a world-leading forensic pathologist who has carried out over 23,000 post-mortem examinations.

07:56Using a digital anatomy table, he can dissect virtual human bodies,

08:01peeling back layers of tissue, muscle and bone to analyze the consequences of a riding accident.

08:07A fall from the horse could always be fatal, depending on the injuries that are caused.

08:16But traveling at pace, caught unawares, those injuries are much more likely to be fatal.

08:26Injuries from a fall from the horse can, of course, occur anywhere on the body,

08:31depending how the person lands. But the abdomen is particularly interesting,

08:35because there are so many organs compressed into such a small space. On the right-hand side,

08:42there's the massive liver, which is easily lacerated or ripped apart by an impact with the ground.

08:48The same applies to the spleen, which is on the left-hand side of the body, just tucked underneath

08:53the ribs. And that's often associated with those rib fractures. The bowel itself can be damaged by

09:00pressure and twisting, causing it to burst. But perhaps most importantly, are the injuries that are

09:07caused when the spine acts as an anvil and a blow from the front compresses the organs between the

09:15spine at the back and the abdominal wall at the front, causing the injuries which will often rupture

09:21the bowel. And all of these things can lead to death either quickly or slowly.

09:31It's clear that a fall from a horse for a 60-year-old medieval man could have proved fatal.

09:38But would a man who spent his whole life in the saddle take a tumble so easily?

09:43So, given that Genghis Khan is such a horseman, such an equestrian, what do you make of the idea

09:51that he might have died from a fall from a horse?

09:55The source itself does talk about Genghis Khan taking a fall whilst hunting, but he spent his entire

10:02life, possibly as many as six decades, riding. Why did he fall? Maybe the saddle itself let him down.

10:09We don't actually know. I imagine, well, for a start, that perhaps they fell often. I mean,

10:15even if they're expert horsemen, just by sheer probability, the number of hours a day they're

10:20spending in the saddle, I guess it's how quickly you get back up that's the key to your success.

10:25But the other key thing you've said is his age. So, if he has been riding for that long, he's that old,

10:33then a fall is potentially going to do more serious damage than it would when he was 20.

10:38Yes, you'd have thought so. So, it is possible as a cause of death, even if the source is rather

10:45sort of, it glosses over it a bit. He takes a fall whilst hunting, but it's a year or so before he

10:51died. There is a long time between the accident happening and his death. There is a bit of a

10:59conundrum there. So, it's possible but not decisive. Absolutely.

11:04I'm wondering what might explain this conundrum, this year-long gap between Chinggis Khan's injury

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

11:19It says that on the night after his injury, Chinggis Khan's flesh was hot.

11:26When considering the death of Chinggis Khan, the words that are really important to me are that his

11:33flesh became hot, which hints to me that he must have developed an infection and a fever.

11:40In an age before antibiotics, an infection might linger for months, which could explain the gap between

11:50his injury and his death. But this theory depends on the accuracy of the source.

11:57The secret history of the Mongols is not a history book. It's not history in a proper sort of western or

12:08even in the Chinese sense. It's a collection of legends. It's a compilation of stories and the whole

12:17purpose is to celebrate his life for his descendants. If you understand the Mongolian term for history,

12:25history, it means selection. So Tuch, Tuch means selection. You pick up those important things,

12:35important for whatever story you want to tell, any moral you want to sort of draw,

12:41you tell them for that purpose. That's Tuch, that is history.

12:48It's likely then that the story of the fall from his horse was selected for a purpose.

12:53But what purpose? I think it's worth being aware of the agendas people may well have brought to bear

13:01when explaining Genghis Khan's death. For some, it will have been an attempt to show a reverential

13:09approach to his death, to reflect his reputation and his career as an enormous empire builder. And

13:17they're writing from a position where they want to show him as this enormously influential historical figure.

13:25It seems to me that it's almost acceptable to think of Genghis as dying on his horse, because that's the

13:34most honorable picture that would want to be portrayed of him by those who revered him afterwards.

13:43You know, dying as a great leader reinforces his power.

13:48It seems to me the secret history's account of Genghis Khan's death is more fantasy than fact.

13:57Invented to glorify a man, its writer revered as ordained by the gods.

14:03And that begs the question, if the story is fiction, what truth is it hiding?

14:18Genghis Khan lived and maybe died in the saddle. The earliest written account of his death suggests

14:35he died as a result of a fatal riding injury. And the pathology confirms that a fall from his horse

14:41could have been deadly, especially if followed by sepsis. But I suspect the account is fundamentally

14:48flawed, more propaganda than a fact.

14:55Fortunately, there is another account of Genghis Khan's final moments,

14:59written by the medieval world's most celebrated traveller.

15:03One of the various people who tells the story of Genghis Khan's death is Marco Polo,

15:09the famous Venetian traveller who set out for the Mongol Empire and later on entered Mongol service.

15:16He too showed a curiosity about Genghis Khan and his death.

15:21According to Marco Polo, Genghis Khan was killed on campaign against a rival dynasty known as the

15:28western Shia. We know from Marco Polo's records that Genghis Khan had died in battle on his horse

15:36from an arrow wound to his knee. Other accounts confirm Genghis Khan's last battle took place in 1227

15:46against the western Shia in what is now northwest China. So Marco Polo's version of events seems

15:52historically plausible. But was it technically possible? Would a 60-year-old ruler revered as a god

16:00really have been exposed to enemy fire?

16:05Thankfully, I have never ventured near a battlefield. But from everything I've read,

16:10medieval battlefields could be frenzied, chaotic, bloody affairs. In that maelstrom, if an arrow wound

16:17was, as Marco Polo suggests, part of the great Khan's final days, then it seems to me that the nature

16:24of Mongol warfare could be key to understanding the truth behind his fate.

16:37Mike Lodes has spent decades studying the art of Mongolian archery.

16:42So, how much power is there in one of these shots? Can you draw this back enough so that when

16:53it's loosed, it can penetrate a man's body? Oh, goodness, yes. First of all, you can have a go.

16:59So, there's a bow. That's it. So far, so good.

17:06Just need an arrow now. Yeah, that's the tricky bit. You put it on this side.

17:09OK. And that's called the knock, that little groove. And the power of a bow is simply the

17:15power of the spring, which is the speed at which it returns. So, the more power in drawing back,

17:23the faster the arrow will go. Oh, that's looking good. That's good. There you go.

17:29And remember, you're jiggling about on a horse. You're moving about.

17:33Yeah, this is easy. Oh, goodness me. OK. That's that. That is the tricky bit.

17:42It is the tricky bit. I don't... That is the tricky bit.

17:46Come on, woman. I'm like, don't worry. I'll be there in a second. Just trying to put the arrow on.

17:51OK. You're looking good. Pull it all the way back. Pull it back. Oh, looking great. That's great.

17:56Look at that. And you... Did you hear the punch that went in? Yeah. Yeah.

18:00So, that tells you, compared to the other one, the... You had more power because you pulled it back

18:05further. So, the type of bow that the Mongols were using... Yes.

18:10...is six to seven times this power. Wow. Good looking good.

18:17Nice. That was a really wonderful thwack. I enjoyed that.

18:27OK. So, now I understand how the Mongols' enemies could have been shot with an arrow,

18:32but Marco Polo says that Genghis Khan was shot in the knee. Now, how could that have happened?

18:39Well, I mean, it technically could happen on the battlefield, but I think it's most likely that it

18:45happened in a siege where you're going to be quite close to the archers on the wall.

18:53Mongol warcraft evolves very rapidly over time.

18:58And one particular area is in siege warfare.

19:01Particularly from China, they pick up the use of siege catapults, the use of siege crossbows,

19:10which they can mount in their wagons. When they conquered one city, they would round up

19:15all the able-bodied people from that city and march them to the next one, and then force them to run

19:22against the walls of the city they're attacking. And the defenders will then shoot them down with

19:28arrows and crossbows and catapults. But by the time that all these people have been killed,

19:35they've run out of ammunition. I want to put the Mongols in and their actual siege troops

19:39to take the city as a whole. But even in the chaos and violence of a Mongol siege,

19:46it's hard to imagine their leader could have been caught in the crossfire.

19:53What if Genghis Khan was wearing armour? Surely he would have been protected.

19:58He had the option to be protected. He's unlikely to have bothered to protect his knees.

20:02It would not surprise me that he went to the front lines unarmoured. It would surprise me that

20:08he didn't have chest armour on riding into battle. But I think inspecting the troops, possibly at dusk,

20:15going forward, no, he wouldn't feel vulnerable. Very easily got by an enemy sniper.

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

20:26lozenge shape. You'll see it has... That one's not too sharp.

20:31It's going to hurt, though. It's going to hurt. It could get through leather because the idea of it

20:37is that it cuts. So you can see how easy these are to sharpen.

20:44Obviously, most of the armour is leather armour, so a cutting edge is ideal for a leather armour.

20:50If you hold that, and let's... Oh, yeah, look at that.

20:56You know, that has punched through. That's effective! Look at that!

20:59Really quite effectively. And shot from a powerful bow, a really powerful bow,

21:06something that's got something like 140, 160 pounds draw weight, that would punch so hard,

21:13you've got a flying razor blade that could go through leather armour.

21:17Well, so you're saying it's a plausible place to be struck by an arrow, but presumably,

21:24therefore not hitting any vital internal organs. So how could it possibly lead to his death?

21:28The Mongols, the Tanguts this year, all used poison arrows. It's widespread in those cultures.

21:37And this is a perfect surface to smear some poison.

21:42Aconite is the most likely type of poison. It's what we call wolfsbane,

21:47or monk's hood. It paralyzes you. It will kill you in the right dose.

21:52This will introduce it into the bloodstream. So I think a poison arrow in the knee, that could do it.

22:04A poison arrow is a compelling possibility.

22:07But there's no mention of poison in Marco Polo's account, or in any other source.

22:15And that leaves me wondering whether there's a less exotic, but equally deadly explanation.

22:21Could an arrow to the knee have caused the hot flesh described in the secret history?

22:27Forensic pathologist Dr Richard Shepard is using 3D technology to peer inside the body and assess the impact of such an injury.

22:38The insanitary conditions of any battlefield with horse manure and blood and mud around you is the possibility of infection.

22:51That wouldn't kill you immediately, but the spread of infection into the joint space,

22:56into the knee, leading to a septic arthritis, would have resulted in the pre-antibiotic era, in a very slow and painful death.

23:06But other than that one brief reference to fever, there's no mention in any account of Chinggis Khan suffering a prolonged illness before his death.

23:21Could there be another way for an injury to the knee to prove fatal?

23:26The anatomy of the knee is really quite complicated.

23:30Around the knee is the ligaments that support it, there's the patella at the front, there's the tibia at the bottom, and the femur at the top.

23:41But crucially, around the back of the knee is this major blood vessel called the popliteal artery.

23:50And the popliteal artery carries a huge amount of blood.

23:54And so damage to that by the arrowhead or the arrow would have caused immediate torrential hemorrhage.

24:03The pathology proves it is possible Chinggis Khan died from an arrow wound, whether from loss of blood at the time or infection sometime later.

24:13And my short and less than brilliant career as an archer tells me an arrow had the power to penetrate Mongol armor and mortally injure their leader.

24:24But the textual evidence is less convincing.

24:28It really depends on whether you actually believe in the Marco Polo story or not.

24:36Some say it is fabrication, some say he probably never actually visited.

24:42But the real question is whether we should really take his words, which is not reliable, which is not authenticated, as something solid, as a piece of evidence.

24:54So, I don't know what we should make of it.

25:00I do know Marco Polo was a storyteller, not a historian.

25:06His rambling account blends fact with fiction, placing real historical characters alongside giants and dog-headed men.

25:15So, it wouldn't surprise me if Marco Polo confused or conflated events.

25:23Chinggis Khan did suffer from an arrow wound in 1212, but that's 15 years before his death.

25:29So, it seems likely that he is in some way reflecting that information, although it seems unlikely that was what killed him.

25:36Chinggis Khan spent so much time on the battlefield that, at first glance, an arrow wound seems like a likely cause of death.

25:46But the only source that records it is Marco Polo, and he is writing a century later.

25:51It's not in the Mongol sources at all.

25:53Then, there's the timing.

25:57The sources all agree Chinggis Khan died in 1227, but the only other record of him being shot by an arrow is more than 10 years earlier.

26:07But there is another theory that might explain his death.

26:11And it's far more sensational and far more intimate.

26:16I think we need to get off the battlefield and into the bedroom.

26:23And it's far more visible because it's a very powerful thing.

26:26The world has never seen it.

26:28It's far more sensible, but it's far more sensible.

26:35Chinggis Khan ruled over the largest land empire the world has ever seen.

26:41In the process, he razed cities, wiped out entire civilizations, and killed as many as 60 million people.

26:49So, there can be no doubt that the Mongol overlord had more than a few enemies.

26:53And it is those enemies that are behind the most dramatic scenario so far

26:58in our investigation into the cause of Chinggis Khan's death.

27:03Murder that happened not on the battlefield, but in the bedroom.

27:09In 1227, Chinggis Khan was fighting against a rival dynasty,

27:14the Western Shia, in what is now northwest China.

27:17He could, as Marco Polo suggests, have been killed in battle.

27:24But there is another account in which he was victorious

27:27only for disaster to then strike.

27:32The precious summary is a book written by a direct descendant of Chinggis Khan.

27:40The book records how Chinggis Khan captured and killed the Western Shia king.

27:45And before his death, the king told Chinggis Khan,

27:51if you take my wife as your concubine, that's fine, but you need to be careful.

27:57She was captured.

27:59They went to bed, and then he said that she harmed Chinggis Khan's body.

28:05And he felt sick, and then thereafter, he died.

28:09Murder in the bedroom at the hands of a vengeful widow

28:14seems like something straight out of a soap opera.

28:17But it's also rather cryptic.

28:20It doesn't tell me how Chinggis Khan was killed.

28:24So with historian Dr Jonathan Dugdale, I'm visiting Cambridge University.

28:30Jonathan, I am very excited about this.

28:33He's offered to show me an original manuscript of the precious summary.

28:40So this is the Erdineen Tauch, the precious summary.

28:45And it's a 17th century Mongol text.

28:48It's like a foundation myth for the Mongolian people,

28:51and it tells the story of them through the lens of Buddhist cosmology

28:56and the life of Chinggis Khan.

28:57And what does it have to say about Chinggis Khan's death?

29:03Well, it has a very interesting story about Chinggis Khan's death.

29:07It's a very euphemistic story.

29:10During the campaign, Chinggis Khan is sieging the city of Lingzhang.

29:16And what eventually happens is he kills the final emperor

29:20and takes his wife as a prize of war.

29:23His wife is called Go Belch.

29:25And in the words of the text,

29:28when they went to bed, she harmed his golden body,

29:32which caused his sickness.

29:33A lot of people have read it as she castrated him.

29:39OK.

29:44Castration would have been horribly painful and traumatic,

29:47but would it have been deadly?

29:49By using 3D anatomy technology,

29:54Dr. Richard Shepard can assess the potential impact of castration.

30:02This is certainly not an injury for the faint-hearted.

30:05And as any man would admit,

30:07it's not high up on the list of the ways they would choose to die.

30:11It's one of the rarer injuries I've ever seen,

30:14and it's seldom fatal on its own.

30:19So removal of the genitalia with a sharp knife

30:21on someone staying still is not difficult.

30:24But if the person is fighting or struggling,

30:27other injuries can be performed,

30:29and they may be far more serious

30:31than the removal of the genitalia themselves,

30:35mainly because next to the genitalia

30:38are major blood vessels,

30:41the femoral artery and the femoral vein,

30:44and damage to either of those blood vessels

30:46causes torrential hemorrhage

30:48that is likely to lead to death very quickly indeed.

30:53Genghis Khan could have been killed

30:57by castration and its side effects.

30:59But was he?

31:02So tell me about this as a source.

31:05How reliable is this?

31:06What are the circumstances in which it was produced?

31:09So the precious summary was written

31:12by a Mongolian scholar called Sagan Seton

31:15in the 17th century.

31:18So it's produced 400 years

31:21after Genghis Khan's death?

31:23Yes.

31:24How trustworthy is it then?

31:26Well, the source is based on an earlier text

31:31called the Golden Summary.

31:32But what's interesting is in the Golden Summary,

31:36the section about Genghis Khan's death

31:39is almost verbatim the same as the precious summary,

31:43except for the fact it doesn't mention

31:46that it was Goebelge who harmed Genghis Khan.

31:52It just says he died.

31:55So the crucial line is missing?

31:57The crucial line is missing from the original source, yeah.

32:02Well, that seems very important.

32:04So what...

32:05Is there any reason why a line like that would have been added?

32:09Does it discredit Genghis Khan in some way?

32:12I mean, it feels a bit degrading.

32:15Certainly from our perspective,

32:17it seems like the idea of castration

32:20and being bested by a woman

32:22would be emasculating for Genghis Khan.

32:24I mean, literally in this case.

32:26Yeah, quite literally.

32:27But if we think about it in the context of the time,

32:31neither of those things would have been viewed in the same way.

32:35So if we start by talking about castration...

32:37Great start to a conversation.

32:39If we start by talking about castration,

32:42in Chinese history,

32:43the court was often largely run by eunuchs.

32:46So it wasn't kind of counter to masculinity, as it were.

32:51So power, military skill, political acumen,

32:55turns out testosterone not necessary.

32:57Exactly, yeah.

32:58It wasn't seen as a necessary part.

33:01And, I mean, in terms of his virility,

33:04that was already well proven.

33:06Genghis Khan had many sons already by this stage.

33:09He doesn't lose anything in terms of his masculinity

33:12in the act of castration.

33:15And what about this idea about being bested by a woman?

33:18You said that's not problematic either.

33:19Not necessarily.

33:21There's a huge number of examples of Mongolian women

33:24who were politicians, warriors.

33:28So, if we have the sense then that it's not at all humiliating

33:32that Genghis Khan had this end,

33:34does it actually contribute something?

33:36I think this may be one of those things where it's a good story.

33:40And in the vacuum of solid evidence of how he died,

33:46it's often the good stories that come to the fore.

33:49So, I don't think I'm reading between the lines too much

33:53to conclude that you don't think it's actually what happened.

33:57When you think of someone who has the history that Genghis Khan has,

34:01him dying of sickness, a heart attack, falling off his horse,

34:06whatever the story is,

34:08it doesn't have perhaps the glamour of the life that he led.

34:12And so, you need to add an ending

34:15that matched the life that has been lived.

34:17Yeah, I think so, yeah.

34:20The murder story simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

34:24It's based on just one account,

34:26written 400 years after Genghis Khan's death.

34:30And this makes no mention of castration, just harm.

34:35It seems to me the castration theory is fantasy

34:38rather than historical fact.

34:42So, I'm ruling out an assassin

34:43and turning my attention to a very different suspect.

34:47In my investigation into Genghis Khan's death,

35:14so far I've learnt that a fatal injury on a hunt,

35:17in battle or at the hands of an assassin

35:20was scientifically possible, but historically hard to substantiate.

35:25So, what if there's something that's not in the historical accounts?

35:29Something that only modern science could possibly reveal?

35:32For writers describing the death of Genghis Khan,

35:40it must have been very tempting to present it as an epic showdown

35:44surrounded by the bodies of the fallen,

35:46or perhaps a spiritual event.

35:48But actually, for many rulers in this era,

35:51disease is by far the most likely cause of death.

35:54The Mongol Empire spread enormous distances across the steppe and beyond,

36:01and it came across hugely different kinds of people

36:05that it incorporated into its empire.

36:08And along with that kind of incorporation

36:10came the spread of diseases and illnesses.

36:13We have various sources that describe him

36:17as dying from illness or disease.

36:21Rashid al-Din, in his world history,

36:23describes illnesses being Genghis Khan's cause of death.

36:26Some other Middle Eastern sources also suggest

36:28that that was the reason for his death as well.

36:31In my research, I've discovered there is one disease

36:34that's repeatedly linked to the Mongols.

36:38The plague, or as it was known in the Middle Ages,

36:40is the Black Death.

36:43One of the key phenomena associated with the Mongol Empire

36:46and its enormous geographical scope across so much of Eurasia

36:50is the Mongols' role in spreading the Black Death.

36:55Inadvertently, it has to be said,

36:56but several historians have made a case for saying,

37:00well, perhaps the movement of Mongol merchants and messengers

37:03and armies across the continent,

37:06maybe that played a role in the spread of the Black Death.

37:10To find out more about this possible link

37:14between the Mongols and the plague

37:16and its implications for the death of Genghis Khan,

37:19I've invited medical historian Kevin Goodman

37:22to the Investigation Hub.

37:23When we talk about the plague, what are the symptoms?

37:32What does it feel like to experience it?

37:34You begin to get feverish,

37:36and then you begin to feel the pain.

37:39You begin to feel a really, really painful swelling,

37:43mobbing your neck, mobbing your groin,

37:46and these are agonies.

37:47You're rolling in the bed or in the floor in agony,

37:51and these are getting bigger and bigger.

37:53You cannot touch them.

37:54You're becoming delirious.

37:56There is no way you can get any respite.

38:00And it gets worse and worse.

38:01This is a really undignified, horrible death.

38:05And what's the lethality rate of the plague?

38:09What proportion of people who get it will die?

38:11Well, we do know that in the 14th century,

38:15one third of the population of Europe were killed.

38:18That's huge.

38:20That's massive.

38:20One third of the population.

38:23But what exactly was the plague?

38:26And how might it have infected Genghis Khan?

38:29Bubonic plague is caused by a specific bacterium

38:35called Yersinia pestis.

38:37And Yersinia pestis really likes travelling

38:39through the lymphatic system of the body.

38:42We have arteries and veins carrying the blood

38:45to and from the heart,

38:46but we have this third system, the lymphatic system,

38:49which drains the lymph, the fluid that helps fight infection.

38:53And that goes everywhere in the body.

38:56And as it spreads throughout the body,

38:58it forms these little nodules or sort of stations

39:01where the body can fight infections.

39:04These nodules are everywhere called lymph nodes.

39:07In bubonic plague, though,

39:08these get bigger and bigger and bigger

39:11to form great big lumps in the neck

39:14and in the groin all over the body called buboes,

39:18hence the name of the disease, bubonic plague.

39:22Bubonic plague is a disease that's carried on rats and fleas

39:27and it can be transmitted to humans or animals.

39:31Nowadays, there are still outbreaks of plague around the world

39:34and these are usually treated successfully with antibiotics.

39:39But in Khan's day, of course, there were no antibiotics.

39:42The mortality of the bubonic plague was high

39:45and if he caught it, there was a very, very high chance

39:50that he would have died.

39:54It seems that even the mighty Khan

39:56may not have been able to escape a disease as devastating as plague.

40:00But when and where might he have been infected?

40:07You've got to imagine the context, really,

40:10that someone like Genghis Khan,

40:11his empire in its main centres comprise of huge wagon cities.

40:18We're talking about thousands of wagons.

40:20In the centre of these huge wagon cities,

40:24you've got these massive, great tents.

40:27These tents would be able to accommodate thousands of people

40:30and then beyond that, millions of horses, sheep and other animals

40:35which form part of the Mongols' herds.

40:39So, Kevin, is there any sense

40:41that this great moving city of the Mongols

40:45would have been a place in which plague

40:48and other diseases would have festered?

40:50Where there are large numbers of humans,

40:54you're going to find rodents, rats, mice.

40:58They're drawn to humans.

41:01And if we think of this massive, moving city

41:05carrying their own supplies,

41:08no rodent in its right mind is going to turn that down.

41:12It's going to be a magnet.

41:14So, the situation in which Genghis Khan was living

41:17was one that made him particularly susceptible

41:21to this kind of contagious disease?

41:23Yeah.

41:24He's in his mid-60s.

41:26He may have been injured before, we don't know.

41:28Immune system may have been impaired, we don't know.

41:31If he's living in circumstances

41:33where there may be rodents

41:35that have been carrying jacinia pestis,

41:38they've had fleas feed on them,

41:40and then those fleas go into people,

41:43and then you've got body lice also feed on those people,

41:47and you've got the spread of body lice and fleas,

41:50yeah, he's at risk.

41:52But how real was that risk?

41:56According to my research,

41:57the first official reports of the Black Death

42:00appear in Sicily in 1347.

42:03That's over 4,000 miles from Genghis Khan's last campaign,

42:08and more importantly,

42:09it's over 100 years after his death.

42:14The bubonic plague really becomes obvious

42:16from about 1340 onwards.

42:19That's 110, 15 years after Genghis Khan's death,

42:23but historians are increasingly using

42:26bioarchaeological methods

42:27to establish whether the Black Death

42:29was around a lot earlier

42:31than has been claimed previously.

42:33The analysis of the DNA

42:36that has been found in skeletons

42:39from the 14th century

42:41that revealed the plague,

42:43I found that it's very similar

42:44to the plague DNA in marmots,

42:49which are indigenous rodent species

42:52in Mongolia.

42:54Okay, so this is exciting new research.

42:56It is.

42:57Because suddenly now we've got new technology

42:59that's starting to reveal

43:01the pattern of disease in the past.

43:04Yeah.

43:05This research traces the bubonic plague

43:08from Europe back to Genghis Khan's territory,

43:12which strongly suggests

43:16that this is where the Black Death originated.

43:19But how can we reach the conclusion

43:26that this is what caused him to die?

43:28Recent research has suggested

43:31there may have been an outbreak

43:33of a serious disease, illness,

43:38that caused a lot of deaths in China

43:41in the 1220s, 1230s,

43:44around the same time Genghis dies.

43:47Also, in the Islamic countries

43:50that border the Mongolian area,

43:53there were reports of people

43:55having headaches,

43:57fevers,

43:58pains in their armpits,

44:01which is synonymous with plague.

44:04In other words,

44:05we can perhaps infer

44:06that this is something

44:08that is around

44:09because we've got evidence of it

44:11all around Mongolian empire.

44:14So, in the end,

44:16do you think we can say

44:17with any probability

44:18that Genghis Khan died

44:20of this disease?

44:22As we become more familiar

44:23with the analysing of DNA,

44:26we may find skeletons

44:28that date from that period,

44:30and then we can really

44:32gather more information.

44:34So, it makes it probable

44:36that it's not a smoking gun?

44:38We may find we may be wrong.

44:40That's always a possibility.

44:42But I think what it's revealed

44:44is so exciting.

44:49Future DNA discoveries

44:51may push back the origin of plague

44:53to before Genghis Khan's death

44:55in 1227.

44:56But right now,

45:00the dates don't quite add up.

45:22So, what really killed Genghis Khan?

45:24Was it his battle wounds?

45:26Was it illness?

45:27Was it a fall from his horse?

45:29Or was it a very painful assassination?

45:33I think I've found enough evidence

45:35to rule out murder

45:37and not enough to include plague,

45:39which leaves an injury,

45:42possibly followed by infection,

45:44caused either by a fall from a horse

45:46or an enemy arrow.

45:49If I had to choose,

45:51I'd say a fall from a horse

45:52is the least problematic conclusion.

45:54A simple end

45:56that's somehow fitting

45:57for a man who lived his life

45:59in the saddle.

46:00I'm a female.

46:05I'm a fat guy,

46:05who's a very lucky one.

46:07If I had to be a man who lived my life

46:08in a saddle,

46:08I'll tell you that

46:09I'm a little royally.

46:09I am.

46:10I know.

46:11I know.

46:12I know.

46:13I'm an pearl guy,

46:13I know.

46:14I know.

46:15I know.

46:16I know.

46:17I know.

46:18I know.

46:18Transcription by CastingWords

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