Bronze Age Complex Site with Deer Stones a and Deer Stone Monuments and Related Bronze Ag
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
183 km
Riding-time estimate
6 h 11
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
It goes by way of Gol Mod II, Deer Stone Monuments and Related Bronze Ag and back through Gol Mod II. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Bronze Age Complex Site with Deer Stones a
Out on the steppe of central Mongolia, there are stone monuments that have stood for around three thousand years. Deer stones are tall granite slabs, sometimes taller than a man, carved with images of flying deer, their long antlers sweeping back along the stone, along with belts, tools, and a sun and moon. They were erected in the Late Bronze Age, roughly between the fifteenth and seventh centuries BC, by nomadic herders who also built stone mounds and square fenced burials known as khirigsuur. The stones seem to mark graves of important people, and the deer motif has been interpreted as a vehicle for the soul to travel to the sky, though nobody knows exactly.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Bronze Age Complex Site with Deer Stones a is where the day begins. Next is Gol Mod II.
2. Gol Mod II
Gol Mod II lies in the open valleys of central Mongolia, and the first thing to know is that there is no road to it in the sense most riders mean. You reach it on tracks across the steppe, past herders' gers and grazing horses, and then the tombs appear: a field of low mounds and earthworks, and at its heart a huge square structure with a long ramp, the grave of a member of the Xiongnu elite.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Gol Mod II comes up 29 km in. Next is Deer Stone Monuments and Related Bronze Ag.
3. Deer Stone Monuments and Related Bronze Ag
On the open grassland of north-central Mongolia, tall grey slabs of granite stand in lines, tilted slightly towards the sky, with strange carvings on their sides. These are deer stones, and the name comes from the flying deer with long antlers that are carved on them, stylised as streams of curving lines. They were raised by Bronze Age herders about three thousand years ago, probably as memorials to important men, and some stand three or four metres tall. Mongolia has well over a thousand, more than anywhere else in the world, and the best-known groups lie around the Khangai and the northern mountains, within the broader region of the Gol Mod sites that make up this part of the map.