Images of Mongolia by Stephane Passet, 1913

I literally just saw this on a BBC documentary and I thought it was worth a blog post.

Stephane Passet went on an odyssey through Asia in the 1910s, taking some amazing colour photographs on the way.

Photo: Daily Telegraph.

The image shown is of a female Mongolian prisoner. Passet recorded that she had been imprisoned for adultery but historians have cast doubt on this, as Mongolian culture of the time was thought to be tolerant of adultery.

The purpose of imprisoning people in a box in this way was to allow the nomadic people to transport prisoners from place to place. It was 'portable imprisonment'.

People who took pity on prisoners were allowed to leave them food and water and small bowls can be seen in the photograph, just beyond the reach of the incarcerated woman.