The Tomb of Genghis Khan

Item #: SCP-XXXX

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: While SCP-XXXX's remote location and apparent harmlessness simplify containment considerably, precautions must be taken at least until its origin is understood.

The secrecy of the research site is to be maintained by confining research to subsurface activities when the Earth is visible. The infiltration of terrestrial lunar probe and satellite telescope programs carried out to protect Foundation Lunar Facilities must be extended to maintain the seclusion of SCP-XXXX as well.

SCP-XXXX's environment should be subject to minimal disruption. In particular, researchers should not introduce artificial atmosphere and and should not remove artifacts beyond the minimum required for genetic or radiocarbon analysis.

All footwear worn must include the owner's Fountation ID tread stamp.

As of 5/5/11, detailed measurements and 3D scans of SCP-XXXX must be taken before and after any work on the site, in addition to routine bimonthly scans.

Description: SCP-XXXX is a small tomb carved into the lunar surface approximately 40 km east/northeast of the Vallis Capella. The single entrance is a 1x1 meter hatch cast from solid gold. The hatch was under 3.4 cm of dust when initially discovered. From the hatch, a shaft with steel rungs extends down six meters to the antechamber.

The antechamber has a pair of stone doors locked with a golden seal cast directly into the intersection between the doors and a collection of dire threats engraved into the walls in Old Uyghur script, Mongolian script, Arabic, Latin, Tangut, and Old Mandarin. The threats promise horrible dismemberment for any who break the seal and "disturb the repose of the Khan of Khans, Genghis Khan, the Flail of God and Master of the Stars."¹ The center of the room contains SCP-XXXX-A-1 through SCP-XXXX-A-14 in two columns of seven.

Beyond the antechamber is a second, much larger room, containing treasure, weapons, books, foodstuffs, and, in the center, an obsidian coffin with SCP-XXXX-B inside and a bundle of arrows on top. Engraved in the walls are three maps: the Mongol Empire as of 1227 CE on the left, an equirectangular map of the Earth with all landmasses on the right, and a map of the Solar system out to Uranus opposite the door.

SCP-XXXX-A-1-14 are the corpses of soldiers in fine leather armor, carrying ornate bows and jewel-encrusted swords and knives. Thin iron rods in the armor fit into sockets in the floor to keep the corpses upright and at attention. The cold and lack of atmosphere have left them well-preserved, and all fourteen appear to have died from acute hypoxia (although with no evidence of the ebullism associated with uncontrolled decompression). Genetic analysis shows that all fourteen were ethnic Mongols and that four were direct descendants of SCP-XXXX-B. Radiocarbon dating has put the SCP-XXXX-As at an average age of 751 ± 60 years old.

SCP-XXXX-B is the preserved corpse of a male of Mongol descent in approximately his mid-60s. He was almost exactly two meters tall and powerfully built. Y-Chromosome comparison to modern descendants of Genghis Khan (approximately 0.5% of the modern male population) show a clear genetic link. Additionally, a preliminary examination concluded that the cause of death was an infected arrow wound found on the right thigh, consistent with Marco Polo's account of Genghis Khan's death. Similar to the SCP-XXXX-As, SCP-XXXX-B was dated at 766 ± 60 years old. According to all tests available to the Foundation, SCP-XXXX-B is either the preserved corpse of Genghis Khan or a forgery so elaborate as to defy explanation.

Addendum-Origin Theories: Whether or not to give the tomb an SCP classification was debated at some length, as the tomb itself exhibits no dangerous or anomalous properties. However, the presence of a 13th-century warlord's body on the Moon so thoroughly defies rational explanation that the tomb has been granted SCP classification until and unless a non-anomalous origin is accepted. Several competing theories have been proposed, although none have reached widespread acceptance.

Theory 1: Elaborate Forgery
The tomb and its contents were placed by forgers of extreme skill and forethought.

Show Arguments For

• No evidence has been found anywhere else in the Solar system that powered spaceflight was achieved in the 1200s CE.

• Many structures and objects in the tomb were constructed or placed with neat multiples or fractions of a meter, an anachronistic unit of measurement with a well-documented history²

Show Arguments Against

• The Foundation has had comprehensive monitoring of all spaceflight in the Solar system since the ██th century. The hypothetical forgers would have needed stealth systems of unprecedented efficacy to evade detection.

• Researchers found a rock pile from the tomb's excavation, and the rocks showed the appropriate amount of weathering and compaction for approximately eight centuries on the moon. Forgers who are so advanced that they could fabricate such a hoax are at least as implausible as a Mongol space program. We at least know that spaceflight is possible.

• Projections based on the dimensions of SCP-XXXX-B show that a healthy Genghis Khan would have stood 2 meters high. It is not inconceivable that the tomb's construction was based on neat multiples or fractions of the Khan's height.

Theory 2: Spatiotemporal Anomaly
The tomb and its contents were transported through space and/or time to its present location on the Moon.

Show Arguments For

• No footprints were found anywhere near the tomb. No one saw any when the site was originally discovered, and all presently existing footprints bear appropriate Foundation ID tread stamps. Furthermore, no unaccounted-for signs of a spacecraft's arrival or departure exist anywhere near the site.

Show Arguments Against

• The tomb is largely constructed out of lunar materials, making it very unlikely to have been constructed on Earth. Furthermore, the rock pile shows that something was excavated at the SCP-XXXX site.

Theory 3: Extraterrestrial Involvement
The tomb was created by extraterrestrials to honor Genghis Khan.

Show Arguments For

• Genghis Khan was easily the most influential man of his age. He was brilliant, physically imposing, and responsible for the creation of an empire that conquered virtually all who opposed it. If extraterrestrial visitors in the 1200s were to have focused on anyone, it would have been him. They might have honored him by placing his tomb on the moon.

• This explains the tomb's creation from lunar materials without requiring the existence of anachronistic human powered spaceflight.

Show Arguments Against

• There is no more evidence for extraterrestrial visitation than for a Mongol space program. Surviving Mongol records, artwork, and artifacts bear none of the usual markers of contact with an advanced species.

• Tool marks on the excavated rock and engraving in the tomb show only preindustrial techniques, so humans were involved in some capacity.

Theory 4: Mongol Space Program
The tomb was constructed by Mongols in the 1200s.

Show Arguments For

• Nothing about the tomb's construction is impossible, merely anachronistic.

• It is an established fact that the Mongols conquered the most advanced civilizations of their day, capturing Chinese and Arabic scientists and researchers and putting them to work in service of their new Empire.

• It is also an established fact that the Mongols were capable of the kind of comprehensive massacres and devastation it would have taken to dismantle a space program once it was no longer needed.

• Mongol legends say that those who constructed and hid the tomb of Genghis Khan were put to death, and then their executioners were in turn put to death as well. This might be a reference to the SCP-XXXX-As and whatever group covered up the hatch and removed the spaceship.

• There is no argument that Genghis Khan's final resting place was well hidden. Finding a way to build it on the Moon would have been a matter of degree, but not kind.

Show Arguments Against

• The suggestion that Mongols built, used, and dismantled the infrastructure to support a mission to the Moon nearly eight hundred years ago, without leaving a scrap of evidence except the tomb, is utterly ridiculous.

Theory 5: Self-Aware Construct
SCP-XXXX is a self-aware construct that benefits in some fashion from confounding attempts to rationally explain its existence, i.e. it literally defies explanation.

Show Arguments For

• Two members of the Lunar Task Force Lambda-88 ("Luna Ticks") that first found that site had recently read about or researched Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire. By the time the antechamber door was unsealed, experts in ancient languages and Mongol history were on-site. The entire complex could have been fabricated from their knowledge and expectations.

• Numerous theories have been countered with data discovered only after the theory's proposal. The spatiotemporal displacement theory looked reasonable until the excavated rock was discovered two days later. The forgery theory was on the cusp of acceptance until forensic exams concluded that a healthy Genghis Khan would have been an even two meters tall.

Show Arguments Against

• Detractors point out that there is no sure way to prove that this is what is happening, although frequent 3D scans were added to containment procedures to attempt to "catch it in the act." Most experts on the SCP-XXXX problem view this theory "as exactly the sort of sour-grapes theory you might expect from constantly-stymied scientists who have been around SCPs too long."³

Footnotes

1. To date, no such threats have come to fruition against any of the five Foundation researchers who initially unsealed the tomb.

2. The meter was first adopted in the 18th century by the French Academy of Sciences. It was defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator. It was not secretly invented by the Mongols.

3. Cathar, Vitaly. "Latest SCP-XXXX Theory Fails to Shoot the Moon." Foundation Update Quarterly (Luna Edition) 11 Nov 2010: 56-59