P. K. Kozlov’s Mongolia and Sichuan Expedition (1907–1909): the Discovery of Khara-Khoto

Destiny can play strange games with archaeological discoveries. One can spend half his life studying a scientific problem or looking for traces of vanished civilizations, but all the efforts prove futile: the long and arduous labours remain unrewarded, whereas somebody else makes an unexpected discovery without ever thinking of it — while addressing entirely different tasks. This was the case with P. K. Kozlov, who made an outstanding contribution to archaeology without being a qualified archaeologist. The traveller and geographer gained world renown for his excavations carried out in 1908–09 in Khara-Khoto buried in the Gobi sands, and in 1924–25 in the Hun (xiongnu) burials in the Noyon Uul Mountains in Mongolia. Was it a sheer chance or ‘planned’ luck? Let us try to sort this out.