The Real Story of the Mongolian Singing Dunes

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At the foot of the Tian Shan mountains  in Kazakhstan lies a singing sand dune. Even kilometers away, you can  still hear its eerie melody. The locals say it comes from an evil  spirit, a Shaitan, trapped inside. Once it

flew faster than the eye could see, spreading plague and wicked  thoughts wherever it went. One day, the Supreme Ruler grew tired of  its mischief and took away its powers. The spirit could no longer soar, so it had to

march across the desert  back to its home near the mountains. Exhausted, it fell asleep and was covered by sand. You can still hear it moaning to  this day as it tries to break free. But there’s another story: that

the dune’s song  is the voice of the Mongol King, Genghis Khan. He rests beneath the desert  where his armies once marched, telling the tale of how he conquered this land. THE CONQUEROR WITH A BROKEN HEART It’s 1179, almost

30 years before Genghis Khan becomes the great chief of the  Mongols; his name is still Temüjin. When he was young, his clan left him behind  after his father was murdered by the Tatars, so now he lives in the

northern  mountains, hunting mice to survive. One night, his camp is raided by  the Merkit tribe, who take his wife. He doesn't have an army, so he  asks a local prince for help. Moved by his tears and a sable 

jacket brought as a gift, the prince provides him  with thousands of soldiers. As Temüjin and his borrowed army catch  up to the Merkit, they try to flee. Amid the chaos, his wife hears his voice  crying out for her

and runs to him. She’s safe, but Temüjin won’t rest until  every enemy who wronged him is gone. TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH For the next 40 years, he is on the hunt. He not only eradicates the Merkit,

but also  the members of his own clan who abandoned him. He even defeats the mighty Tatar  tribe, which killed Temüjin’s father. Only children and the common folk are spared. He needs new soldiers after all. By 1219, he has

become emperor,  the fearsome Genghis Khan. Now his forces reach the edge  of the Khwarazmian Empire in Southern Kazakhstan, home of Sultan Muhammad. The ruler doesn’t like his new neighbors. When a Mongol trade caravan passes by, he has  its

500 travelers killed and their goods seized. Genghis Khan sends an envoy to demand repayment, but Muhammad kills him and burns the beards off  his guards before sending them back home in shame. By now, it’s clear that the Mongol

King  won’t tolerate messing with his people: he marches 3,200 kilometers west toward the Sultan’s palace with an army  hundreds of thousands strong. Crossing the desert is  hell, but as the story goes, before the Mongols collapse from  the heat,

they spot a strange oasis. There’s no one here, but someone has  arranged tall stones in a circle. It almost looks like an ancient shrine. Locals say an evil spirit rests nearby, but  Genghis Khan is exhausted from his journey.

He turns the shrine into a kitchen, using  the stones to hang his army’s cooking pots, and sets camp by a dune near the mountains  he names Altyn-Emel, “the Golden Saddle.” When night falls, Genghis  Khan hears a strange sound,

almost as if a voice is speaking  to him from under the sand. A SONG OF SAND AND BLOOD The Khan leaves the dune with a new fire. As if the spirit had whispered the  secrets of how to kill

his enemies, he busts the Sultan’s armies  and war elephants with ease. For the Sultan, there is no saving his kingdom,  so he evacuates his children and flees. Genghis Khan now rules the largest unbroken  land empire the world has

yet seen. But for all his earthly power,  the khan was a mere mortal. No one knows for sure where he was buried. Following Mongol tradition, he is likely laid to rest somewhere safe  from his enemies, close to the

mountains. Somewhere like the remote dune that once  sheltered him before a fatal battle. Perhaps it’s the voice of his troubled spirit  that is the source of the dune’s mysterious sound. Today, we have a new explanation. When millions of

grains of sand of just  the right size tumble down the slope, they rub against each other  producing a strange hum. For millennia, this phenomenon has  been explained through legends, but science has given us a  different way of seeing

nature. Now, new stories explain our environment to us. But the old tales of evil spirits and ruthless conquerors still tell us  something about ourselves: how much we need stories  to make sense of our world. The Chorus of Dunes

is just one of the legends  we feature in our new Human Era Calendar. Every month shares a different story that our ancestors used to explain  the strange world around them. Dive into 12 magical artworks,  like the taming of

volcanoes; learn about mythical creatures that stem  from early fossil finds and many more legends – giving you a full year of  kurzgesagt art for your wall. By buying a Calendar you fund  our independent channels and help us release

free videos for everyone. Thank you so much! Get your Human Era Calendar now,  only on the kurzgesagt shop.