国内英语新闻:Chinese Terra-cotta Army exhibition in Sweden "enormous success": museum director

STOCKHOLM, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- The exhibition of the Chinese Terra-cotta Army here was an enormous success, project organizer Sanne Houby-Nielsen said Sunday.

About 320 objects, including terra-cotta warriors from the ancient Chinese Qin Dynasty and other terra-cotta figures from Han Dynasty, were exhibited at the Far Eastern Antiquities Museum during the event, which ended Sunday.

Houby-Nielsen, who is director of the museum and also director-general of the country's National Museums of World Culture, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview that the total number of visitors was around 350,000, more than double the expected turnout.

This was the highest number of visitors the museum has ever experienced in its history since it was established in the 1940s, said Houby-Nielsen, adding that the exhibition was originally scheduled to end on Jan. 16, but "a great pressure from the audiences" prompted the museum to extend it till Sunday.

"It is an exhibition which won the most audience for many years in Sweden. We feel particularly happy because it was a very good display of the story of the first emperor and the early Han Dynasty," she said.

"We felt such a huge interest that we have to prolong it. So we were very grateful that it was possible to prolong the exhibition," she added.

The exhibition was declared open by Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf in August. Many of the ancient Chinese artifacts have never been exhibited outside China.

Swedish Sinologist Cecelia Lindqvist commented that the event helped people understand the current China by looking at the history of China presented in the exhibition.