In the entry of this great palace, it being unseemly
by a serpent or dragon Such symbolism appears,
to bring in there skins of milk and other drinks,
for instance, in the Qirghiz cycle of Er Töshtük,
master William the Parisian had made for him
in which the hero must make a mystical journey
a great silver tree, and at its roots are four lions
into the underworld There he finds an elm tree
of silver, each with a conduit through it, and all
whose trunk reaches through the centre of the
belching forth white milk of mares And four
conduits are led inside the tree to its tops, which
earth, the tree’s crown reaching to the sky with
are bent downward, and on each of these is also
a dragon coiled around its base He rescues the
a gilded serpent, whose tail twines round the tree
young of an eagle by cutting the monstrous crea-
And from one of these pipes flows wine, from
ture in half To show her gratitude the mother
another cara cosmos, or clarified mare’s milk,
eagle swallows Er Töshtük and then disgorges
from another bal, a drink made with honey, and
him, transformed and rendered invulnerable, and
from another rice mead, which is cal ed terracina;
after that carries him up again to the land of the
and for each liquor there is a special silver bowl
living 30
at the foot of the tree to receive it Between these
It is of note that under Möngke’s reign the
four conduits in the top, he made an angel hold-
building of an important Buddhist temple with
ing a trumpet, and underneath the tree he made
central stūpa was completed in Qaraqorum 31
a vault in which a man can be hid And pipes
During excavations at the site a thirteenth- or
go up through the heart of the tree to the angel
[…] And there are branches of silver on the tree,
fourteenth-century copper alloy matrix for a
and leaves and fruit 27
double vajra (“thunderbolt”) was found 32 A con-
cept similar to that seen on the above examples
Significantly, the portrayal of the tree with
also governs the depictions on the matrix: from
serpents has certain analogies with that of the
each of the arms of the cross grow a pair of dragon
previously discussed large water-clock automaton
protomes that support the pyramidal jewels, rep-
described in a medieval Islamic illustrated horo-
resenting the sacred Mount Meru as the centre
logical treatise 28 During the medieval Islamic
The symbolism on the matrix attests to the uni-
period, automata in the form of silver gilded trees
versality of the various manifestations of the ser-
with artificial singing birds were known as
pent-tree-cross iconography revealing, to a great
ex pressions of imperial might, particularly in
extent, a unified tradition throughout the Central
ʿAbbasid times 29 However, the affixing of the four Asian world, which shares certain basic beliefs 33
gilded serpent ducts from which flow four differ-
William of Rubruck’s journey to Mongolia
ent types of liquid appears to be a unique feature
coincided with the fresh wave of extensive mili-
which must have been meaningful to Möngke
tary campaigns launched by Hülegü (r 654/1256–
Khān and his entourage, according to whose
663/1265), Möngke’s younger brother and ex -
orders the prestigious serpent-tree was designed
pe ditionary commander, across Central and
and placed at the most central location in the
Western Asia The future founder of the Ilkhan-
palace facing the Khān’s throne
ate led the main body of the Mongol army across
Related imagery may be sought in popular tra-
the Oxus river and onto the Iranian plateau His
dition and folklore However since any diffusion
eldest son, Abāqā, the future second Ilkhan, who
of narratives took place largely through oral trans-
was born in Mongolia in 1234, accompanied him
mission before finding crystallisation in the liter-
In 654/1256 the grandson of Ghengis Khān over-
ary world, it is interesting to regard oral epics
came the Shīʿa Muslim state of the Ismāʿīlīs (the
popular in Central Asian folklore (which were
Assassins) ensconced in northwestern Iran and
recorded as late as the nineteenth century) as pos-
in 652/1258 brought the ʿAbbasid caliphate in
sible carriers that transmitted and thereby pre-
Baghdad to a violent end Thus establishing their
served remnants of the age-old visual concept of
hegemony over most of West Asia, the Ilkhanid
a tree with roots reaching the underworld guarded
dynasty ruled over Mesopotamia, Iran, Western
27 The Mission of Friar Wil iam of Rubruck, tr and ed
among the Kurds Cf Schmidt, 1980, pp 19–20; Abełyan,
Jackson and Morgan, 1990, ch 16
M , Erkeri zhłovacu (“Collected Works”), Erevan, 1966–75,
28 Hill, 1976; cf 1984, p 230
vol 1, pp 383–8, as cited in Russell, 1987, p 311
29 See p 65, n 162
31 Hüttel, 2005, p 146
30 Recorded by the great Turkic philologist and archae-
32 Dschingis Khan und seine Erben, 2005, p 176, cat no
ologist V Radlov (1885, pp 535–8); see also DeWeese, 1994,
176
pp 237–8 Closely related tales are known in Armenia and
33 Cf DeWeese, 1994, pp 39–50
214