of the mountain around him, sprayed milk into the air and sprinkled it on the earth. He removed his girdle strap, unwinding it from his outfit, and then put it around his neck. Symbolically by this act he surrendered his Mongolian man's pride and expressed his submission to the gods. He took off his hat, crossed his hand across his chest and knelt in obeisance nine times offering worship to the sun and the mountain. He spent three days on the mountain offering prayers and thus established a strong bond of spirituality with the mountain and derived special strength from it. In the Secret History of the Mongols, Genghis Khan, who later became the "World Conqueror" believing in his own destiny, said: Genghis Khan then started his campaign to unify the land and people of Mongolia as a strong force. He gave the Burkhan Khaldun the status of a royal sacred mountain. The history is chronicled in the Secret History of the Mongols, which UNESCO recognised in 1990 as a "literary creation of outstanding universal significance". In this document Burkhan Khaldun is described in detail and mentioned 27 times, which signifies the unique position of the mountain in Mongolia‘s heritage. This document establishes the authenticity of the site, stating: A Presidential Decree of 1955 formalised the worship of the Burkhan Khaldun Mountain as a national monument. Special worship is offered to the mountain according to a prescribed procedure at the main "Ovoo of the Heaven"; it is reserved for a few officials of the state and local administration, shamans and a few Buddhist lamas (monks). World Heritage status Burkhan Khaldun was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site at the 39th session of the World Heritage Committee on 4 July 2015 under the title "Great Burkhan Khaldun Mountain and its surrounding sacred landscape", covering an area of and an additional buffer zone of , categorised under Criterion (iv) for its unique cultural tradition of mountain and nature worship of past several millennium, and (vi) for its universally known historical and literary epic of immense importance. Religious significance Burkhan Khaldun has a spiritual significance unmatched by any other mountain in Mongolia and is given the symbolic status of the “cradle” of Mongolia's nationhood fully representing the "heritage and traditional ways of life of nomadic people of Mongolia". The (unconfirmed) Mongolian belief that Genghis Khan was born here and is buried somewhere