← Explore on the interactive map
Rabban Bar Sauma's eastward pilgrimage journey
From the late 1270s to around 1281, Nestorian clerics Rabban Bar Sauma and Rabban Markos traveled from Yuan Dadu via Central Asia to the Ilkhanate, d…
Timeline
- 1275–1278Dadu (Khanbaliq) · Yuan DaduDriven by Nestorian tradition, Rabban Bar Sauma and Rabban Markos set out westward from Yuan territory, planning an overland pilgrimage to Jerusalem, crossing Central Asian trade routes and khanate domains along the way.
- 1278–1280Within the Ilkhanate · IlkhanateThe two entered the Ilkhanate by land; with the Syria-Palestine war blocking the way, they could not continue south to Jerusalem, so they remained in Persia and joined the local Nestorian community network.
- 1281Baghdad · BaghdadAround 1281 the two reached Baghdad and were received by the Nestorian patriarch Markos II; the pilgrimage plan was abandoned, and Bar Sauma thereafter long active in Mesopotamia, gradually establishing ties with the Ilkhanid court.
Sources
- The History of Yaballaha III, Nestorian Patriarch, and of his Vicar, Bar Sauma — James A. Montgomery (trans.) (1927)
- The Mongols and the West, 1221–1410 — Peter Jackson (2014)