Gigi Lamb
June 30, 2026

One afternoon, while we were excavating on Nariin Gol Mountain, the sun felt almost unbearable. There wasn't a single tree or cloud to offer shade. As we paused to complain about the relentless heat, one of our lead archaeologists “Jerry” Tuvshinjargal chuckled and shared a traditional Mongolian story that he was reminded of.

Long ago, the story goes, the Earth had not one sun, but seven. Their combined heat scorched the land, making life nearly impossible. A skilled archer named Erkhii Mergen vowed to save the people by shooting down every one of the suns. Confident in his skill, he promised the people that if he missed even a single shot, he would cut off his own thumbs and spend the rest of his life living in a hole, never again drinking pure water.

One by one, Erkhii Mergen's arrows struck six of the seven suns. But as he drew his bow for the final shot, a swallow flew between his arrow and the remaining sun. The arrow clipped the bird's tail instead, leaving the swallow with its distinctive forked tail to this day. The final sun remained in the sky.

True to his word, Erkhii Mergen accepted his failure. He cut off his thumbs and retreated into a hole in the earth, where he transformed into a marmot. According to the legend, this is why marmots live in burrows and why they appear to have short, thumbless forepaws.

Standing on that exposed mountainside beneath the blazing sun, we decided that another student on the project, Khangai, might just be the next Erkhii Mergen. If he could somehow shoot down that last remaining sun, he could save us all from another afternoon baking in the heat. Perhaps fortunately—though unfortunately for us—he declined, and we finished the excavation under the same single sun that Erkhii Mergen left behind.