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The eighth of the Nine-Nines —nine periods of nine days each, each period marked by some description of winter weather—begins today, February 22. This is Нал шал болно, the time when puddles appear on the ground. As the name indicates, it should now be getting warm enough in the afternoons for snow to melt and puddles of water to appear. It was still Minus 20º F. at eight this morning, but the forecast is for a high of 16º above this afternoon. If it actually reaches this temperature it may be the warmest day yet this year. While 16º above F. is of course well below freezing, radiant heat, on black rocks for instance, should be enough to melt snow and ice. So it is quite possible that some puddles will appear this afternoon. In no time at all it will be time for the First Wildflowers To Appear .

Feeling a bit down? Well, maybe it is because the moon will reach its Apogee  today. Here in Zaisan Tolgoi the apogee occurs at 2:21 p.m. At this time the moon will be 251,327 miles away, the farthest it gets from the earth during the current cycle. Tonight the moon will also swing by the top of Orion, which should get all the Egyptologists out of their funk.  Graphic courtesy of Sky & Telescope As all you Devotees Of The Moon God Sin know (I’m looking at you, Puabi), the Full Moon is coming up on February 26. And all you Neo-Pantheists (you know who you are) should get your Elk Antler Headgear out of the closet! Is another meteor too much to pray for?

The seventh of the so-called Nine-Nines —nine periods of nine days each, each period marked by some description of winter weather—began five days ago, on February 13. The Seventh of the Nine-Nines is Doviin Tolgoi Borlono , the “time when the tops of the hills become brown.” This would seem to indicate that it should be getting a bit warmer and some snow should be melting. I waited five days for this to happen, but now it does not appear that it will. Just yesterday we had fresh snow both here in Zaisan Tolgoi and on the nearby mountaintops. And this morning it is still Minus 26º F. with an expected high today of only Minus 8º F. Next Big Event:  Spring Equinox in 30 days!

In a post about the Early Sogdian History of the Bukhara Oasis I mentioned the ancient cities of Paikend and Varakhsha. I would be remiss if I did not make a few more observations about Paikend, known during its prime as “the city of merchants”, or “the copper town” (apparently for the quality of its copperware). Located at the southern entranceway to the Bukhara Oasis, Paikend may well be older than Bukhara itself, and for much of the first millenium a.d. may have been the more important of the two cities. It was the first major city in Sogdiana north of the Amu Darya River and most caravans that crossed the Amu Darya at Amol would have passed through the city. Through Amol it was linked to Merv in Khorasan and the great Silk Road cities of the Iranian Plateau and Mesopotamia beyond. From the east much of the caravan trade from China, Mongolia, and East Turkestan (now Xinjiang Province, China), would have been funneled through the city. Paikend was also famous for its locally produce...

While the Siege of Otrār was in progress Chingis Khan and his youngest son Tolui led the main Mongol army southwest to Bukhara. With them were Turkish auxiliaries who by then had sided with Chingis. “These fearless Turks,” according to the Persian historian Juvaini, “knew not clean from unclean [i.e., were not Muslims], and considered the bowl of war to be a basin of rich soup, and a held a mouthful of sword to be a beaker of wine.” No mention is made in any of the sources about crossing the Syr Darya, usually a intimidating operation, which leads the Russian Orientalist Barthold to opine that the river was frozen over by the time the Mongol army reached it and that they crossed over on the ice. This could have occurred no earlier than late November or early December. The first major town the Mongols encountered south of the Syr Darya was Zarnuq. “When the king of planets raised his banner on the eastern horizon [at sunrise, to the more prosaic-minded],” Chingis and his army appeared ...

The sixth of the so-called Nine Nines —nine periods of nine days each, each period marked by some description of winter weather—began yesterday, February 4th. This is Zuraasan Zam Garnai , the Time When the Trail of the Road Appears. This description would seem to indicate a slight warming from the previous Nine-Nines, a time when well-traveled trails become free from ice and snow. We did have a slight warm spell, but now temperatures have dropped again, and it’s calling for Minus 35º F tonight, and minus 40º tomorrow night (for those of you asking for temperatures in Celsius, I have but two words: Bite Me! ) .  Tsagaan Sar is of course next week, and forty below 0 F temperatures are not at all uncommon during this holiday. The next Nine-Nine starts on February 13, and by then we can pretty expect the back of winter to be broken.