Karabalgasun!
Karabalgasun/ Ordu Baliq/ Khar Balgas was just amazing. I had read about it and included it in teaching, but visiting was something different. The sheer scale of the place, especially the monumental central complex is hard to understand without seeing it in person. Equally, the size of the surrounding settlement, which seemed to disappear into the distance was sobering. Experiencing a site within its landscape and understanding its proximity to Karakorum really underlined the importance of the Orkhon valley and its residents long before the Chinggisid conquests. I was thankful for the work of the Mongolian and German archaeological teams who had published extensive and accessible material about the site to help me understand it. Drawing on the expertise of other MC participants at the site also transformed my experience, and underlined that the slow, hard and thorough work of archaeologically understanding large urban sites is worthwhile.
