Terracotta warriors and burial garments embroidered with jade and golden threads will be among the star attractions of a major exhibition of Chinese artefacts which opens here this week.

The exhibition, which runs from September 22 to January 28, is entitled China: The Birth of an Empire. On display are 350 artefacts, some of which have never left China, from 14 museums and covering more than ten centuries of Chinese imperial history.

The artefacts are mostly from tombs which date from the end of the last pre-imperial dynasty, the Zhou Dynasty (1045-221BC), through the Qin Western Dynasty (206BC-23AD).

The exhibition is at the Scuderie del Quirinale, the former stables of the palace which is now the official residence of the Italian head of state.

The opening of the show coincides with an important trip to China by Italian Premier Romano Prodi, at the head of a government delegation plus representatives from 12 of Italy's 20 regions and top members of the powerful industrial employers' federation Confindustria, the Italian Foreign Trade Institute (ICE) and the Italian Banking Association (ABI).

The six-day mission, which ended on Monday, saw the participation of some 500 Italian businessmen, making the overall group the largest Italian one to ever visit China.

The terracotta warriors on display are from the "army" of life-sized warriors, horses and carts found near the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of a united China.

Other emperors followed his example and filled their tombs with terracotta statues and the Rome show includes some 200 painted statues, as big as 70cm high, from the tombs of two Han emperors, Gao Zu and Jing Di, representing horsemen, horses, servants and domestic animals.

Source: Xinhua