Crack troop ... one of the terracotta warriors in the First Emperor exhibition, with an image of his comrades in the background. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
The First Emperor exhibition at the British Museum is a fascinating, once-in-a-generation opportunity. Everyone should go and see the visiting selection of the 7,000-strong army of ceramic soldiers, originally buried to protect the tomb of Qin Shihuangdi, who united the warring states of China under his rule in 221BC.
What I particularly loved was the reminder that the army is just the tip of the iceberg: the emperor's tomb itself has not been excavated, and may never be: but ancient sources say it was an elaborate underground palace complex complete with seven rivers and an ocean formed from mercury.
And the figures themselves. Impressively compelling, and they must have been particularly so when brightly painted and holding their real, gleaming weapons.
However, at the risk of engaging in a Hegelian discourse about the superiority of the spirit of Hellenism (and here I will disagree slightly with my colleague Jonathan Jones), the artistry is not a patch on the Parthenon frieze, nor many of the classical Greek or Hellenistic sculptures you can see any day of the week in the British Museum. That's not to make an argument about the superiority of one empire over another, but just to state my aesthetic preference.
