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A new exhibition opening at Istanbul's Sabanci Museum Thursday features rare vestiges of an empire of one of history's most feared warriers, Ghengis Khan.
"Genghis Khan and his Heirs - The Great Mongolian Empire", will display nearly 600 works of art, eight centuries after Ghengis Khan founded the largest empire of all time, and highlights the cultural role of the Mongols in Eurasia.
"Gengis Khan was known first as a warrior," the museum's director, Nazan Olcer, said Wednesday during a news conference. "We forget that the domain of his empire also encompassed an enormous cultural and artistic body."
The famous warrier united Mongolian tribes, before founding an empire that stretched from Beijing to Bulgaria.
Already shown in Germany and Austria, the exhibition in Istanbul is enriched by around 40 extremely rare manuscripts, which had been secretly held in various museums and libraries throughout the city, and illuminate the role the Mongols played in diffusing Chinese culture.
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AFPEntertainment-Turkey-Mongolia-culture
AFP 061827 GMT 12 06
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