Sum Khokh Burd

Sum Khokh Burd is a ruin of dressed stone on an island in Sangiin Dalai lake, built around the tenth century in a region where almost everything was built of felt and wood, which makes it archaeologically odd: the stone was brought from a considerable distance and the structure appears to have been a temple. It was abandoned, reoccupied in the seventeenth century when a palace was added, then abandoned again. What stands now is walls and doorways open to the sky, reached across the lake bed when the water is low or by wading when it is not, since the lake is shallow and its extent changes with rainfall. The poet Danzanravjaa is associated with the site. It stands alone in flat steppe with nothing else in sight, which gives it considerable atmosphere.

What you actually see

• The stone shell - walls and doorways of the tenth-century temple.
• The island setting - the ruin surrounded by shallow lake or dry bed.
• The later additions - traces of the seventeenth-century rebuilding.
• Open steppe - flat country with nothing else on the horizon.

When to go

May to September; access depends on water level, which is lowest in dry years and late in the season. After wet weather the approach becomes a wade or is impossible. Morning and evening light suit the stone.

Honest expectations

The ruin is small and roofless with no interpretation on site. Access varies with water and can require wading through mud. There are no facilities and the tracks in are rough. It is a stop of an hour or two on a Gobi route.

Nearby

Mandalgovi is southeast; Baga Gazriin Chuluu lies north.