| Date | May 2018 | Marks available | 4 | Reference code | 18M.1.BP.TZ0.2 |
| Level | Both SL and HL | Paper | Paper 1 - first exams 2017 | Time zone | TZ0 |
| Command term | Analyse | Question number | 2 | Adapted from | N/A |
Question
Source C
Kanishk Tharoor, a writer and broadcaster, writing in the article “Lost cities #5: how the magnificent city of Merv was razed [destroyed] – and never recovered” in the series about lost cities published in the British newspaper The Guardian (2016).
[At its height] Merv was a cultural capital, attracting the brightest thinkers and artists from around the Islamic world … To be marwazi (from Merv) suggested a degree of cultivation and sophistication ... Though secluded in an oasis in the Karakum desert, Merv was a worldly city, an exemplar of the commercial and intellectual culture that flourished along the Silk Road.
Merv was also no stranger to political upheaval and war … [but no] conquest was as traumatic as its pillage by the Mongols in 1221 … According to the [Muslim] historian Ibn al-Athir, who based his account on the reports of refugees from Merv: “Genghis Khan ordered the troops who had been seized should be brought before him … they were executed and the people looked on and wept. When it came to the common people, they separated men, women, children and possessions … They took the wealthy people and beat them and tortured them with all sorts of cruelties in the search for wealth … Then they set fire to the city and burned the tomb of Sultan Sanjar and dug up his grave looking for money. They said, ‘These people have resisted us’ so they killed them all.”
[Source: Kanishk Tharoor, “Lost cities #5: how the magnificent city of Merv was razed – and never recovered”, The Guardian. www.theguardian.com]
With reference to its origin, purpose and content, analyse the value and limitations of Source C for an historian studying the Mongol conquests under Genghis Khan.
Markscheme
Value:
• The source was written in 2016 and provides context of the long-term impact of the Mongol conquest of Merv, which is described as a “lost city”.
• The source indicates that there was a substantial human and cultural cost to the Mongol conquest of the city.
• Part of the source is based on contemporary accounts of the attack on Merv and/or there is a suggestion that only those areas that offered resistance were annihilated.
Limitations:
• The author is a writer and broadcaster rather than a professional historian and the intention is likely to pique the interest of a general readership.
• It is written for a newspaper as part of a series of articles on lost cities and may lack depth.
• The source uses dramatic language and the excerpt within the source is from a Muslim historian’s accounts of refugees from Merv and is, therefore, likely to exaggerate the brutality of the Mongols.
The focus of the question is on the value and limitations of the source. If only value or limitations are discussed, award a maximum of [2]. Origins, purpose and content should be used as supporting evidence to make relevant comments on the values and limitations. For [4] there must be at least one reference to each of them in either the values or the limitations
