There isn't much information about Balbals and the Öngöt Complex in Mongolia and you have to make an effort to find these, even though there are a lot of sites. The word Balbal comes from Ukrainian балбал, and this probably comes from the Turkish word balbal, meaning ancestor or grandfather [1]. With Ungut or Ongot (Өнгөт) it turned out to be more difficult because I had to search quite a bit. I initially thought it referred to shamanistic or more accurately tengristic spirits because of Ongod (Онгод); Tengrism (Тэнгэр шүтлэг). But no, öngöt only means colored and can also be found in such prosaic expressions like өнгөт принтер – color printer. So the place that I want to describe in particular is called Öngöt Complex (Өнгөтийн цогцолбор) because it is located near Color Mountain (Өнгөт уул). I will use the official transliteration, which is Öngöt and not Ungut or Ongot. The Öngöt Complex is located on the edge of the Khustain Nuuru National Park (Хустайн байгалийн цогцолборт газар), which is about 100 km from Ulaanbaatar. The Öngöt Complex consists of a main tomb, animal stone figures and human stone sculptures, the Balbals.
I first saw Balbals near the Burana Tower in Kyrgyzstan (near the small town of Tokmok), which were erected by the Sogdians around the 6th to 10th centuries [2]. There, after decomposition, the bones were placed in an ossuary or terracotta coffins and stored. You can see very well-preserved balbals there, but they have been collected from different places.
I was lucky enough to see statues from a new exhibition from the Ahar region at the Azerbaijan Museum in Tabriz (Iran). These looked exactly like the Balbals [3].
I looked in travel guides. The German travel guide by Walther and Woeste [4] briefly describes the Öngöt Complex as an Ongot Complex, which will be the topic here later. The Lonely Planet Mongolia [5] did not have this complex, but lists several Balbals scattered across the country, which are located in: Öndörkhaan (Өндөрхаан), Dariganga (Дарьганга), Altai Gobi (Говь Алтайн), Tsambagarav Uul (Цамбагарав уул) near Bayan Uul (Баян-Уул) – however, we drove west of the mountains, Altai Tavan Bogd National Park ( Алтай Таван богд байгалийн цогцолбор газар), south of Üüreg Nuur (Үүрэг нуур) - it's a shame, we missed the place by a few kilometers, as well as Zagastain Davaa or fish pass ( Загастайн даваа).
The German guidebook describes the Öngöt Complex only briefly (p.213), something like this: “On this path you pass one of the most famous grave complexes, the Ongot Grave, which was built by Turkish peoples 1200 to 1400 years ago (N 47° 33.215' E 105° 50.985')." We passed there because we had to take a big detour through the plain. We couldn't drive through the park and across the mountains to our accommodation, which lies hidden, because the rain had rendered the slopes so muddy that it was no longer possible to get through. On the plain, however, it was possible. There we reached the Öngöt Complex. More than 550 balbals stand upright in line for a distance of about 2100 meters [6]. The main grave is believed to be from the Nobles of a Turkic people (7th century Turkic Khaganate). From excavations it is quite certain that sacrifices were made there for this noble. This part of the grave complex is fenced off to prevent destruction by animals, but of course you can visit it. Next to the main grave, which is surrounded by stone slabs, you can see a ram and a lion as well as the first Balbals. Attempts were made to reconstruct some of the Balbals with an adhesive, but they fell apart again. I marked the spot on Google Earth [7]. The grave can be seen at the bottom left in the weakly contrasted rectangle. This is the largest facility in Mongolia and I assume anywhere else.
What was the purpose of the Balbals' long line facility? I haven't been able to find out anything about it. Perhaps the balbals were intended to honor the noble buried in the main grave. But I could imagine that later generations would see it as an honor to be buried there. But these are just two hypotheses. I would imagine that especially there, near the Tuul River (Туул гол), the soil has poorly preserved organic remains, making archeology difficult. Nevertheless, I don't want to sound too pessimistic, because at least building materials, wooden foundations and roof tiles were found during excavations. What is our motto: “Let's get surprised!”
I recommend visiting at least one of these tombs when traveling through Mongolia.
Links and Annotations:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan_stelae according to: O. D. Forostyuk, Луганщина релігійна, Luhansk, Світлиця, 2004.
[2] Burial and Memorial of the Dead https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2014/10/burial-and-memorial-of-dead.html
[3] Statues from the Ahar region https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2018/11/new-attraction-at-national-museum-of.html
[4] Michael Walther & Peter Woeste: Mongolei. DuMont Reise Handbuch. Dumont Reiseverlag, Ostfildern 2019. ISBN: 3770181417.
[5] Michael Kohn: Mongolia. Lonely Planet Publications Ltd, 2008. ISBN: 101741045789.
[6] https://montsame.mn/mn/read/246687 and
https://www.viewmongolia.com/ungut-turkic-monument.html and the information board at the site, which I should have paid more attention to earlier, because my photo clearly says “Өнгөт”, which I needed as a search term, but it has Ungot in the English text, which I find “ungut” not good.
[7] https://earth.google.com/earth/d/1R-xNa4PswGL7sqcepUsVDuHxncR3oVoU?usp=sharing
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