UNEARTHING ANELUSIVE EMPIRE

Archaeologists have discovered rare evidence of an enlightened medieval dynasty that ruled much of Central Asia

- By DANIEL WEISS

IN THE YEAR 1124, an ambitious prince in northern China named Yelü Dashi faced a pivotal decision-stay and make a final stand with his people, who faced nearcertain defeat, or head for the hinterlands in search of new prospects. Just a decade earlier, Dashi had been a junior member of the Yelü royal clan of the Khitan, the nomadic group that ruled the Liao Empire. The empire had been founded in A.D. 907 by Abaoji, a direct ancestor of Dashi's. Abaoji united the Khitan tribes, who were based in eastern Mongolia and parts of China, and rallied them to conquer much of northern Asia, from the border of the Korean Peninsula across portions of northern China, southern Siberia, and Mongolia. This territory included both traditionally Chinese areas that were home to settled farmers and great stretches of steppe where other nomadic tribes roamed. The Khitan maintained their nomadic lifestyle, and their emperors and courts moved among five different capitals. They established a hybrid style of government: An administration in the south, staffed by civil servants, many of them Chinese, was responsible for the largely Chinese parts of the empire, and a northern administration tended to the nomadic tribes of the steppe.