Trivia of Dead Worlds: Mongol Executions

You might have imagined that Mongol executions were a bloody affair. But you’d be wrong. The Mongols were deeply squeamish about blood. The blood of important people, especially, was never supposed to touch the ground. To prevent this, these individuals — when they needed to be killed — were rolled up into carpets and trampled to death by horses. Less elaborately, a person might have their neck broken, or be dragged across the steppes tied to a horse until they died. These traditions extended beyond humans as well. The Mongols had great respect for wolves, and would therefore catch them with ropes and then break their necks. This nervousness about blood also extended more generally to dead bodies. The general burial practice in the era of Ghengis Khan was to simply leave a body behind in the Steppes, and have it picked clean by nature while the Mongol horde moved onwards. For respected people, their bones might be later collected to be interred at sacred burial sites.

– A few thoughts from your friend Saxo