Burial place of Genghis Khan

In The Travels of Marco Polo it says that "It has been an invariable custom, that all the grand khans, and chiefs of the race of Genghis-khan, should be carried for interment to a certain lofty mountain named Altai, and in whatever place they may happen to die, although it should be at the distance of a hundred days' journey, they are nevertheless conveyed thither."

[3] Another folkloric legend meanwhile says that a river was diverted over his grave to make it impossible to find, echoing the myth of the burial of the Sumerian King Gilgamesh of Uruk or of the Visigoth leader Alaric.

Japanese archeologist Shinpei Kato has likewise recounted the tale of the burial of the baby camel, so the parent could lead the Khan's family to the tomb when needed, as being documented in at least one ancient Chinese text.

[5][full citation needed] This was the sacred place where Genghis Khan went to pray to the sky god Tengri before embarking on his campaign to unite the Mongols and other steppe peoples.

[7] In 1920, the French diplomat Saint-John Perse led an unrelated expedition through Mongolia with Chinese Post general director, Henri Picard Destelan and Dr. Jean-Augustin Bussière, in the footsteps of Genghis Khan.

The location, 200 miles to the east-northeast of Ulan Bator near the Onon River in the foothills of the Hentii Mountains, was close to both Genghis Khan's presumed birthplace and the site where he announced himself as the universal ruler of the Mongols.

[10] On 6 October 2004, Genghis Khan's palace was discovered 150 miles east of the Mongolian capital, Ulan Bator, leading to academic speculation that his burial site could alternatively be located nearby.

[14] Their non-invasive analysis, carried out with drones, showed that the 250-metre (820 ft)-long tumulus is of human origin and probably built on the model of the Chinese imperial tombs present in Xi'an.