Life in Motion: Nomadic Cart Culture and Cart Burials of the Golden Horde (A Case Study from Bolshoi Tsaryn I, Kalmykia)

This article addresses the topic of nomadic cart culture in the Eurasian Steppe, which developed over the long term and reached its apex with the advent of the imperial Mongols. A range of narrative, archaeological, and visual sources are employed in order to examine how the carts were used, adapted, technologically improved, and ritualized in lives and burials of the imperial Mongol and specifically the Golden Horde nomads. A unique Golden Horde burial with ornamented cart parts from Kalmykia is analyzed. It is argued that this example reveals the inclusivity of the cart culture in Ulus Jochi whereby a wide use of personal carts by nomads of different ages, genders, and states of health encouraged their active participation in the mobile social life of this Steppe Empire.