The first major presentation of Liao artifacts outside of China ... In geographic extent, it rivaled the other great powers of Asia such as the Khmer Empire of Cambodia and the Abbasid Empire of Iraq ...

Van Berkel, a specialist in the Abbasids’ empire, recalls that the City of Peace, as it was called, had probably around half a million inhabitants. “But that’s still gigantic and beyond ...

“These are gold dinars issued by the Aghlabid dynasty that ruled in North Africa, in the region of modern Tunisia, on behalf of the Abbasid Caliphate ... Yavne where the artifacts were spotted ...