The object is a pair of Mongolian stirrups found in the Mongolian collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They are important for what they represent, the conquest of a vast and incredibly influential empire on horseback.

Citations:

Burbank, Jane and Cooper, Frederick. Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.

“Concerning the Tartar Customs of War,” in The Travels of Marco Polo: The Complete Yule-Cordier Addition 1 (New York: Dover Publications, 1993), 260.

Craughwell, Thomas J. The Rise and Fall of the Second Largest Empire in History: How Genghis Khan’s Mongols Almost Conquered the World. Massachusetts: Quayside Publishing Group, 2010.

Rossabi, Morris. The Mongols and Global History. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011.

Music:

“I can go the Distance” from Disney’s Hercules, instrumental version, 1997. Composed by Alan Menken, lyrics by David Zippel.