The 12th Monaco-Mongolia Archaeological Campaign, conducted jointly by the Museum of Prehistoric Anthropology of Monaco and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences in the Mongolian steppes, made significant discoveries, including bronze arrowheads, ceramics and bones during its latest expedition.

The most remarkable piece, dating back more than 2000 years, is a bronze cauldron. During the excavation of a tomb at the site of Tsatsyn Ereg, archaeologists discovered the cauldron containing a wooden spoon.

According to the scientists, this object, dating from the second century BC, was buried near a human body, in a pit three-metres deep with a series of other artefacts. This would probably have been the burial site of a nomadic rider, many of whom crossed the Great Wall of China to sow terror among the Chinese peasantry.

The search of the contents of the cauldron will be carried out in a laboratory in order to clear the instrument and to try to discover the traces of any possible substance.

Funded by the Monaco Government since 2006, the Monaco-Mongolia joint missions, under the patronage of HSH Prince Albert and under the aegis of UNESCO, are carried out each summer by the teams of Jamyian-Ombo Gantulga, head of the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Sciences of Mongolia, and Jérôme Magail of the Museum of Prehistoric Anthropology of Monaco.

The two teams cooperate on three sites in the Arkhangai province: Khunnu of Gol Mod, the Buddhist monastery of Zayan Khüree and the Bronze Age necropolis of Tsatsyn Ereg, on which a research and exhibition centre was built two years ago with the support of the Prince’s Government.

Elisabeth Gramaglia Gondeau, Honorary Consul of Mongolia in Monaco, has visited the site of Tsatsyn Ereg for the third time, which has just been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List thanks to the work of the archaeologists.

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