Timurid genealogy folio 42a, Topkapi manuscript

What it is

This is a page from a Persian manuscript with brown ink genealogical diagrams, made between 1405 and 1409 in Iran. The curator's note calls it a manuscript miniature of Genghis Khan's ancestors, made about 180 years after his death. The collection record describes two medallions: at the top, Dobun, titled Mergen or Bayan, with his wife Alan Gho'a, ten generations before Genghis Khan; below, Alan Gho'a, now ruling alone, visited by her son, with a yellow dog at her side. The Commons file is a photograph of the page.

Why it matters

The page turns a family line into a visual chart. Its diagrams place Genghis Khan at the end of a long line of ancestors, which helped support the claims of later rulers who wanted to share his prestige. Because the manuscript was made so long after his lifetime, it shows how his family story was shaped by the people who copied it, not only by people who knew him.

Look closer

• How are the ancestors arranged on the page, and what does the layout tell you about who matters most?
• Why might a fifteenth-century patron want a family tree of Genghis Khan's ancestors?
• What does a family chart leave out, such as the lives and voices of the women and men it names?