Very pleased to announce the release of our full-scale documentary on the Mongol Invasion of Europe in 1241 with Kings & Generals. Our largest project yet, it was filmed on location in Hungary with the assistance of a number of archaeologists and historians...

Archaeologists have unearthed a Bronze Age metropolis in the heart of the Eurasian steppe: an early form of city as complex as those of contemporary, more traditionally 'urban' civilisations, showing how steppe polities were just as sophisticated. 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

1/ A depiction of this scene from the famous Warqa wa Gulšāh manuscript. A romance written by the 11th century Persian poet ʿAyyūqī, it tells the story of a pair of doomed lovers, Warqa and the lady Gulšāh. The manuscript above is dated to the 13th century, and likely produced...

Had a very nice chat with Maggie Freeman of the New Books Network's "Nomads Past and Present" series about my book, music, and the environment in Mongolia: newbooksnetwork.com/a-song-for-t...

Our summer 2025 volume has been published open access at doi.org/10.1553/medi...

New paper by me with some opinions on the origins of the Second Mongol Invasion of Hungary, 1285. Link in the comments below!

- I can’t believe I was hacked. - What was your password? - The year the Mongol Empire, with the help of the Southern Song dynasty, completed its conquest of the Jin dynasty after the final Jin stronghold of Caizhou fell. - And when was that? - 1234

New article of mine with @medievalists.bsky.social on the most famous Mongolian wrestler princess

Listening this morning (and this afternoon) to @fallofcivilizations.com podcast on the Mongols with our Jack Wilson as historical consultant! @jackmeistermongols.bsky.social

Was curious to see if Grok, the Twitter AI monster, could tell me what articles I have published. It gave me this; none of these are real, and two of them at best sound similar to things I have published (but are still wrong in name or details).

Article of mine on the Secret History of the Mongols, its content and history #mongolempire #mongolsky #tengri

Bahram Gur Slays a Dragon (verso), from a Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi (940-1019 or 1025), known as the Great Mongol Shahnama https://clevelandart.org/art/1943.658.b

Jurchen swordsman, based on some Da Jin Dynasty 大金 (1115-1234) armour and weapons. These pieces in the photograph may not have originally gone together as one set, but it was fun to do so anyways, especially this zhanamdao (?) styled sword, and the Hannibal Lector-esque facemask...

Never stop believing

Got reminded of this fun depiction of the battle of 'Ayn Jalut, which depicts the Mamluks as Ancient Egyptians and the Pyramids in the background (the battle was fought north of Jerusalem, not in Egypt!). However, it is no longer on the Wikipedia article for the battle, which is a plus.

Uploaded by user "Peng" on Twitter on 03.06.21, the single best scan I have ever come across of the Jin-era "Lady Wenji's Return to Han" 文姬歸漢圖, perhaps the single best surviving artistic depiction of Jurchen clothing

A new episode of The Medieval Podcast with @5minmedievalist.bsky.social : Marco Polo and his World with Sharon Kinoshita www.medievalists.net/2025/08/marc... #MarcoPolo #medieval #podcast

Should be a good listen. Dr. Kinoshita is a great scholar on Marco Polo and did one of my favourite translations of the F manuscript (the oldest extant Polo manuscript, dated ca.1310) www.medievalists.net/2025/08/marc... #tengri #mongolsky #marcopolo

Jurchen Jin Dynasty (大金) elites. Don't remember what I made them for originally, probably my heavy cavalry series. The Mongol Empire reused a lot of former Jin equipment and it had heavy influence on their later styles.

Khitan small script also had a variant "seal script" font. There are two magnificent examples of it: the eulogies on the tombs of Emperor Daozong 道宗 (1032-1101), and of his wife, Empress Xuanyi 宣懿 (1040-1075)

Interested in the Mongol Empire and its underpinning social structure? Have a look at my newest article, "Hypotheses for a Social History of the Apanages of the Sons of Chinggis Khan and Börte" in the last issue of Przegląd Orientalistyczny! p. 99-116 pto.orient.uw.edu.pl/wp-content/u...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 I talked to Lhamsuren Munkh-Erdene about his work on Mongol and Chinese history and why many pre-modern states were founded by nomadic pastoralists. Listen below ⬇️ or wherever you get your podcasts!

Watched CNN last night and saw Doug Ford, premier of Ontario (Canada's largest province by population and economy), referred to as "a Canadian official." Like calling the governor of California "a US official."

A substantial amount of all the "fun facts" people like about the Mongol Empire an are present in many publications, originate in the fever dream that is late 19th/early 20th century scholarship ("Mongols wearing arrow-proof silk vests," being one such)

Response I added to a Twitter thread on average age of marriages in the Middle Ages and the common stereotype that it was always very young women marrying much older men. --- Most of Chinggis Khan's daughters with Börte were likely married off in their mid- to late- twenties.

1/ Ananda, Muslim grandson of Khubilai Khan. Described by Rashīd al-Dīn as "swarthy with a black beard, tall and corpulent," (RD/Boyle 325-326), Ananda was a son of Manggala and assigned to govern the lands of the former Tangut Kingdom.

Esen-Buqa Khan (r.1310-1318) and Kebek Khan (r.1309, 1318-1326). Sons of Du'a Khan (r.1282-1307) of the Chaghadai Khanate. Lead the Chaghadai Khanate in a series of rather unsuccessful wars against the Ilkhanate and Yuan Dynasty over the 1310s and early 1320s.

Matthew W. Mosca - The Khan and the Unicorn Mongol Empire and Qing Knowledge in the Making of World History À paraître en avril aux Harvard UP

1/ Toqtamish Khan's sack of Moscow, 1382. Two years after the supposed "end" of Jochid rule over the Rus' Principalities. The importance of the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380, where Dmitri Ivanovich of Moscow (later Donskoi) defeated the general Mamai is greatly overstated... #mongolsky #tengri #moscow

2026 will mark the fourth consecutive year that the study of Mongol Eurasia has been presented in separate panels at @imc-leeds.bsky.social. Here is the call for papers. Spread the word and come along! #mongolsky #tengri #medievalsky www.academia.edu/143008741/Ca...

Aujourd'hui c'était l'anniversaire de la bataille de Hérat, le 22/07 1270, l'un des principaux affrontements intra-mongols qui suivirent la partition de l'empire après 1259, qui opposa les forces du 𝘬𝘩𝘢𝘯 de l'Ulus de Chaghadai Baraq à celles de l'𝘪𝘭𝘬𝘩𝘢𝘯 Abaqa. #mongolsky #tengri #medievalsky

1. Harl, Kenneth. Empires of the Steppes: The Nomadic Tribes Who Shaped Civilisation. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023. #mongolsky #tengri

1/ We have a few source mentions of the medieval Mongolian word for female shamans, idu’an (Idughan, modern удган). Our written occurrences of the word come from dictionaries of Middle Mongolian; the Rasulid Hexaglot (Yemen, 1360s), and the Beilu yiyu 北虜譯語 (Ming Dynasty, 1500s). #tengri #mongolsky

I've just heard the terrible news that my friend - and friend of many here - Andrew West, @babelstone.co.uk, the incomparably brilliant Sinologist and Tangutologist passed away suddenly but peacefully on 10th July. 1/2

1/ This "woman carrying gold" over the Mongol Empire is a myth, based on an intentional bit of hyperbole by an author in Mongol service, Juvaini (who was originally referring only to the area directly around Chaghadai). #mongolsky #tengri

Bahram Gur Arrives at the House of a Merchant, text page (recto); Bahram Gur Slays a Dragon (verso), from a Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi (940-1019 or 1025), known as the Great Mongol Shahnama https://clevelandart.org/art/1943.658

New article of mine is uploaded, available via my academia.edu page. Link below. www.academia.edu/130269926/Mo...

@romanhautala.bsky.social does a succinct summary as usual here on why ol' Aqsaq Temïr did not attack Moscow and turned away before ever reaching it.

Emperor Tuq-Temür aka Jayatu Khan, and Prince Qoshila aka Khutughtu Khan together with Budashiri Khatun and Babusha Khatun on Vajrabhairava Mandala (1330-1332). #MongolSky

Golev, Konstantin. “Crime and Punishment: The Mongol Invasion, Cuman-Qïpchaq Refugees, and the Second Bulgarian Empire.” In The Mongols in Central Europe: The Profile and Impact of their Thirteenth-Century Invasions. Edited by Balázs Nagy, 463-496. (Budapest: ELTE Eötvös Kiadó, 2023), pg. 465

in progress footnotes when I don't feel like writing out the full reference yet

Yuan: Chinese Architecture in a Mongol Empire by Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt has been Shortlisted for the Architectural History Book Award! Learn more about the book: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco....

Some maps from my latest video. Usually people say that when the #MongolEmpire broke up, it split into 4 independent khanates; the Golden Horde, Chagatai Khanate, Ilkhanate and Yuan Dynasty. But that better describes the situation after 1310. From the 1260s-1310, we have a situation like this.

Bizantolog. ve Arkhe iş birliğiyle 11-16 Ağustos 2025 tarihlerinde Bizans'ta iktidar, halk hareketleri ve demokrasi pratiklerini inceleyeceğimiz bir yaz okulu düzenliyoruz: "Bizans'ı Yönetmek: Demokrasi, Halk ve İktidarın Sınırları." Detaylı bilgi ve başvuru için: archeprojesi.com/kamp/bizansi...

My friend John Giebfried has more comments on the portrayal of steppe peoples in the latest Crusader King's 3 Developer diaries medium.com/@johngiebfri...

Made this for the new video that just came out. Based on one of the heavy cavalrymen from the Great Mongol Shahnama (1330s, Ilkhanate). Link to the video, on the reunification of the Mongol Empire in 1304, below

New video is now up on the reunification of the Mongol Empire in 1304. Link below youtu.be/3NptfhbiQxA