With Beijing poised to enter the spotlight during the Olympic Games in 2008, the China Millennium World Art Museum is doing its best to establish itself as a leading cultural institution. The museum is vying to be China’s first (and largest) space devoted to displaying ancient and modern art from around the world. This autumn it opened a sweeping exhibition of art objects from six early civilisations: Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia, India, Rome and Maya. The show affords a rare opportunity to pour over treasures from vastly different societies. See a vase used during ancient Olympic ceremonies, a statue of an Egyptian sphinx, a relief from the Assyrian palace in Nimrud and a Gandhara sculpture of Buddha, a perfect blend of Hellenic art with the Buddhist spirit. The exhibition features items on loan from around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Turin Museum and the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.