Aims and objectives
Scattered across remote locations in Khentii and Sukhbaatar provinces of Mongolia are historical monuments with medieval inscriptions. Among these inscriptions are several written in the rare and long-extinct languages of Kitan and Jurchen, both of which are on the verge of decipherment thanks to efforts by a host of international scholars. These inscriptions have never been adequately recorded. They are subject to extreme weathering and are challenging to visualise even on-site. The inscriptions contain information about prominent events during the time of the medieval Kitan-Liao Empire and the Jurchen-Jin state. This project uses state of the art photographic methods (ultraviolet, infrared, RTI and photogrammetry) to digitally capture the inscriptions in the highest possible resolutions. This will enable leading linguists in the field to discern glyphs in these texts, which will aid in their decipherment and interpretation and will enable a better understanding of the period preceding the Mongol Empire.
