During 1643-1663 the historian Abulghazi Bahadur (1603-1663) ruled the khanate of Khorezm (now Uzbekistan). A copy of his writings on Mongols and Tatars fell into the hands of German naturalist D. G. Messerschmidt during a Siberian voyage and was published as Histoire généralogique des Tatars (Leiden, 1726).