#kayalbow

[flyingsassysaddles]

How tall do you think Mongolia is?? I always imagine him to be pretty tall. but short Mongolia is precious 😳

Brillant question cause it let's me rant a bit about Mongol appearance!

The typical artist draws Mongol warriors like this:

Notice the stocky build? Still he looks super intimidating, so clearly this guy is like 5'10" right?

Not according to the people who recorded the mongolian appearance.

From Frank McLynn's Genghis Khan (my favorite Mongolia book atm) we have these cited descriptions of Mongols:

- Frair Caprini, a European vistor, described Mongols as "...usually short of stature and slim..."

- William of Rubruck (another European visitor) states "...and almost all are of medium height."

A Christian Armenian (with probably a big bias against the Mongols) writes, "...[they had] short legs like a hog's..."

Most of the books I've read establishes this--that Mongol males were short but stocky--as commonplace, and that trend continues today.

Modern Mongolia is made of mostly the same people, and the trend of Mongolian men being relatively short people continues compared to the 5'9" American average. The average Mongolian male is 168.4 centimeters tall, or 5'6.5", which is noticeably less than 5'9"

Left: Typical male at 5'9"

Right: Mongolian male at 5'6.5"

So yeah, my theory is that Mongolia is shorter than average throughout his life and thus height differences are VALID, thanks for asking!