Terracotta army marches in

I marvelled at the four stocky native Chinese horses pulling a half-size bronze chariot that the First Emperor of China intended to help him travel in the afterlife.

Later this week, the first of the 134,000 people who have already booked their tickets to one of the blockbuster shows of the autumn will follow suit.

In the ornate splendour of the British Museum's temporarily transformed Reading Room, hundreds of foreign press poured through the doors today to see the First Emperor and his terracotta army. Tonight a grand reception for 600 will formally open an exhibition regarded as a triumph of East-West diplomacy as much as a cultural exchange.

From Thursday, thousands of members of the public who will never make it to China to see the warriors in situ in Xi'an will get a glimpse in London instead.

Jane Portal, the museum's China and Korea expert, said the First Emperor, born Ying Zheng in 259BC, united the warring territories of China, introduced centralised bureaucracy, standardised script and coinage and made a start on what would later become the Great Wall.

All these elements of his legacy survived to the 21st Century and are an important part of the emerging world economy of modern China. "He is a world figure as important as Alexander the Great or Napoleon," she said. "But nobody in the West knows who he is because they don't learn about ancient China. He was a major turning point in Chinese history."

As the exhibition shows, there was far more to the First Emperor than the terracotta warriors which were discovered in 1974 and are now famous for keeping him company in his burial chamber. Recent archaeological work shows he was also buried with acrobats and musicians to entertain him as well as civil servants to maintain order. Some examples are in the show.

The mass spectacle available to visitors to Xi'an is represented only in computer generated reconstructions of the burial chamber and other images projectedon to the walls. But Ms Portal said: "It's a different experience. You're not seeing huge numbers, you're seeing up-close and you're seeing details."

Neil MacGregor, the museum's director, said the exhibition fitted the purpose of the museum. "The museum was set up to give people a chance to understand the world. The history we need to understand the world today is what the museum is about," he said.

The exhibition is part of a broader cultural relationship which has seen several shows of British Museum exhibits travel to Beijing and Shanghai. Five hundred tickets are reserved every day for people who just turn up.

How to see it

The show runs to 6 April.
Opening times: 10am-5.30pm.
Admission: £12 for adults, concessions available. Children under 16 free.
Catalogue: £40 for hardback or £25 for paperback.
To book: 020 7323 8181 or www.thebritishmuseum. ac.uk/ firstemperor. 500 tickets available for people who just turn up each day.
Address: Great Russell Street, WC1.Nearest Tube stations are Holborn, Tottenham Court Road, Russell Square.