Karakorum · 1254

The Silver Tree

In Möngke Khan’s palace, after the eyewitness account of William of Rubruck

Notes & sources

From the sources Inferred

The tree (all from Rubruck’s text)

A great silver tree made for Möngke by the Parisian goldsmith William (Guillaume Boucher), set inside the entrance of the palace
At its roots, four silver lions, each with a conduit through it, spouting white mare’s milk
Four conduits run inside the tree to its top, their ends bent downward
On each conduit a gilded serpent whose tail twines round the trunk
The four conduits pour wine, cara cosmos (clarified mare’s milk), bal (honey mead) and terracina (rice wine)
Each drink has its own silver bowl at the foot of the tree
Between the four conduits at the top stands an angel holding a trumpet
Under the tree is a vault where a man can hide; pipes run up through the heart of the tree to the angel
The tree has silver branches, leaves and fruit
Sequence: the head butler calls → the man in the vault blows into the pipe → the angel raises the trumpet and sounds it → servants in the cellar outside pour the drinks into their conduits → the drinks flow into the bowls → the butlers carry them to the men and women

The hall (text + archaeology)

The palace is “like a church”: a central nave with two aisles beyond two rows of pillars
Three doors on the south; the tree stands just inside the middle door (walls and doors are not shown; the door-keepers stand where the side doors were)
The Khan sits on a high place to the north, reached by two flights of steps: the cup-bearer goes up one and comes down the other
The space between the tree and the steps is left empty for the cup-bearer and envoys
Men sit on the Khan’s right (west), women on his left (east); on the south side by the pillars are raised platform seats — sons and brothers to the west, wives and daughters to the east
Only one woman sits up beside him, though not as high
Floor: green-glazed square tiles, granite column bases and remains of wooden columns, per the photo captions of the Mongolian-German excavation of the “Great Hall”. “Green glaze in the centre, grey unglazed tiles at the margins” comes from a search summary quoting a DAI publication that I could not open to verify; matching it to nave and aisles is my reading; tile colours are estimates

Inferences and unsupported choices

The text gives no sizes, proportions or number of branches and leaves; these are set for legibility
Materials: the lions and bowls are silver in the text; the angel’s material is not stated and is shown as silver
Rubruck’s lions spout mare’s milk; here they are shown seated and without the milk streams, a deliberate simplification. Their seated pose is not stated in the text
The angel’s form — standing in a long robe on a finial, wings raised, the trumpet lifted to the lips — follows later illustrations of the tree, not the text
The stone plinth under the tree and the vault hatch are schematic
Wooden columns are attested, but whether or how they were painted is not; plain wood is used. Walls, doors and roof are omitted for visibility
The excavated “Great Hall” is now identified as a Buddhist temple, not the palace, whose site is still uncertain; only its floor tiles and column bases are borrowed as a contemporary reference
The lions’ stance, serpent heads, leaf and fruit shapes and the bowl forms are schematic; the text does not describe them
All ornament is invented in the manner of medieval silverwork: chased scales on the trunk, beaded collars and rims, the petal skirt, leaf veins, serpent scales, the lions’ manes, the angel’s curls, robe folds and feathers. Rubruck names the parts of the tree, not their decoration
Figure proportions, faces and colours are schematic

Sources for the figures

Möngke Khan: seated on a couch, dressed in a skin “spotted and glossy, like a seal’s skin”; Rubruck calls him a man of medium height, about 45 years old
Mongol men’s hair: a square shaved on the crown, a tuft left falling to the eyebrows, the side hair plaited to the ears; robes fasten on the right
The one woman beside the Khan: wears a bocca — made of bark, a cubit or more high, square like the capital of a column, covered in costly silk, topped with quills and decorated with peacock and mallard feathers and precious stones
Cup-bearer: goes up one flight of steps with the cup and comes down the other; otherwise stands with the envoys in the space between the tree and the steps
Envoy of the Sultan of India: brought eight leopards and ten greyhounds trained to sit on horses’ backs “as leopards sit”. Only two leopards and two greyhounds are shown
Envoy of the Sultan of Turkia (Seljuks of Rum): brought rich presents. The gift chest is schematic
Rubruck and his companion Bartholomew: Franciscans, barefoot and bareheaded, carrying the Bible and breviary
Guests on the platforms: the Khan’s sons and brothers on the west, wives and daughters on the east. The cross-legged pose is inferred
The attendant who cries “Ha!” and the musician: when the master begins to drink, an attendant cries “Ha!” and the player strikes his instrument; at great feasts everyone claps and dances to the music, men before the master, women before the mistress. When the master has drunk, the attendant cries again and the music stops. Rubruck adds that most of their instruments were “unknown among us”. The text describes feasts in Mongol dwellings; placing this in the palace is inferred, and the instrument’s form is schematic
Door-keepers: before an audience with Möngke, door-keepers searched visitors for knives; no one may touch the threshold going in or out
Fabrics: silks and cloth of gold were brought from Cathay (north China) and Persia and worn by Mongols in summer; robes fasten on the right. Nobles’ robes are shown with a gold medallion pattern
Knives and purses: locals admired the knives, gloves, purses and belts of Rubruck’s servants; door-keepers searched for knives before audiences. Mongols wearing knives at the belt is inferred
Married women: shave the front half of the head; wear a robe as wide as a nun’s gown, open in front and tied on the right; a fur hood is worn over the bocca
Inferred: the envoys’ clothing, skin tones, faces and attendants are not described and are schematic. These people were not all present on the same day; the scene is a composite. Rubruck himself repeatedly insisted he was not an envoy

Sources for the furnishings

Gilded couch: Rubruck says Batu sat on “a long seat as broad as a couch, all gilded”, that Möngke was “seated on a couch”, and that a gilded couch was brought for him
Gold and silver cups set with stones: at the entrance of Batu’s tent stood a bench with cosmos and “big cups of gold and silver, ornamented with precious stones”. Placing them on the platforms is inferred
Fire grates: a fire of briars, wormwood roots and cattle dung burned in a grate in the middle of Möngke’s dwelling. Fire grates in the palace aisles are inferred
Bows on the west side: men entering a dwelling would never hang their bows on the women’s side. Hanging them on the west pillars is inferred, as are the quivers
Embroidered felt: Mongols embroider felts with vines, trees, birds and beasts and hang them before the door. Laying them on the platforms and before the Khan’s couch is inferred; the pattern is schematic

Sources

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Ha!

Casting the silver tree…