HIST 1016
Mr. Haug
November 9, 2014
“The Many Faces of Khubilai Khan and the Mongol Empire”
Khubilai Khan was born in 1215 and he was the grandson of the infamous Chinggis Khan. Khubilai Khan was described in various ways and Rossabi had stated that “ he is represented as a Mongol in formal Chinese paintings; as a typical Muslim potentate, with the dress and physical features of a caliph, in Persian miniatures; and as a European king, with a Caucasian appearance, in manuscripts of Marco Polo’s account of his travels. Each civilization depicted Khubilai in its own light” (Rossabi, pg. xvii). Many historians have tried to discover who the real Khubilai Khan is, was he more Mongol or was he more Chinese? Although …show more content…
(Lecture, HIST 1016, 10/27/14)
Some historians believe that Khubilai Khan was more Chinese because of the written language and Chinese paintings he took interest in and made important in his rule. The first time that a “written language” was recorded in Mongol history was a Mongol script during Chinggis Khan’s reign (Lecture, HIST 1016, 10/29/14). However, the language was not really conductive to the Mongols, because the script was based on Uighur language until 1269 ‘Prags- pa lama, a Tibetan Buddhist lama, offered to describe a new script that was based on the Tibetan language (Lecture, HIST 1016, …show more content…
Khubilai Khan: His Life and times. Berkeley: U of California, 1988. Print.
Haug, Robert, HIST 1016: Themes in World History: Playing the Game of Thrones, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH
Polo, Marco. "The Travels of Marco Polo/Book 1/Chapter 61." Wikisource. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.