Quaint distractions from Christmas shopping

After being intrigued and somewhat enchanted in a semi-awake state this morning by Turkish military music which is intended to do just that —

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0Fyf63qI_E

— I found myself puzzling over the historically important nexus between the Mongols and the Turks, and then I stumbled onto a fascinating coincidence. The great Mongol Turk chieftain and conqueror Timur (known in the West as Tamerlane) is buried in an architecturally famous tomb in Samarkand, Uzbekhistan, and while his remains were pretty much left alone over the centuries, in June of 1941 Stalin sent in an anthropologist to exhume the great conqueror. According to a variety of sources, an inscription on the tomb coincided with the greatest disaster the Soviets had yet faced:

A Soviet anthropologist, Mikhail Gerasimov exhumed the body of Tamerlane in 1941 and confirmed that Tamerlane may have been a decedent of Ghengis Khan because of several of his Mongol features. Tamerlane was 5’8’’ (tall for his time) and suffered a lame hip so he more than likely walked with a limp. After opening the tomb Gerasimov discovered an inscription on the tomb, “Whomsoever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I.” Only a few hours later, the Nazi Army launched its invasion of the Soviet Union.

Timur’s Wiki entry cites another account which claims it was two days later:

…when a Soviet scientist exhumed Tamerlane’s remains in 1941, it is said that a further inscription inside his casket read: “Whomsoever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I.” Two days later, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

Unless you believe in magic, any connection between such an inscription and the Nazi invasion is just an incredible coincidence.

What is also incredible is the sheer magnitude of terror and slaughter the man inflicted on the world.

He captured 27 thrones across Asia with his nomad armies in the latter part of the 14th century, creating an Empire that stretched from Delhi to Moscow. Trouble is, he was also sadistic and cruel. He regularly butchered the entire populations of cities he conquered, including Baghdad and Damascus, before leaving his calling-card: towers of severed heads. He reputedly left 17 million people dead during his 40-year trail of destruction.

17 million ain’t hay, especially for the 14th Century, when the dirty work had to be done by hand.

Yet just as Stalin was romanticized by America in World War II, Timur was romanticized in the West for years because he slowed the Ottoman advance on Europe. And he has now replaced Marx as an icon in his homeland:

Timur became a relatively popular figure in Europe for centuries after his death, mainly because of his victory over the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid. The Ottoman armies were at the time invading Eastern Europe and Timur was ironically seen as a sort of ally.

Timur has now been officially recognized as a national hero of newly independent Uzbekistan. His monument in Tashkent now occupies the place where Marx‘s statue once stood.^[50]

A controversial figure, Timur is now disowned by most Muslims, utterly despised by Hindus (who were slaughtered by the millions during his Mughal conquest), and is now considered at least not nice by most Christians.

And what if he gave birth to globalism?

If the Soviet facial reconstruction is reliable, he looked like a pretty tough son of a bitch.

Of course, the world became civilized and peaceful since the cruel old days. War has been abolished repeatedly! Massacres of people by the millions are ancient history and such things never happen again.

And we would never name towns and streets for quaint murderous conquerors.