European explorer Marco Polo arrived in China in 1275 AD, after dreaming of exploring the distant world for years.

Historians had thought this was the first contact between China and the west, but now a startling new study suggests otherwise.

The report, outlined in an upcoming BBC documentary, suggests China was in contact with ancient Greek artists 1,500 years before Marco Polo arrived in the east.

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A report , outlined in an upcoming BBC documentary, suggests China was in contact with ancient Greek artists 1,500 years before Marco Polo arrived in the east. The controversial claim is based on two pieces of evidence, one involves the Terracotta Warriors

The controversial claim is based on two pieces of evidence.

The first is European DNA discovered at sites in China's Xinjiang province from the time of the First Emperor in the third century BC.

The samples revealed Europeans settled in China during the time of the First Emperor, the BBC reports.

The second is the sudden appearance of life-sized statues, the Terracotta Army found close to the tomb of China's First Emperor.

Until then, human figures made by the Chinese had been much smaller, and researchers put this sudden increase in size down to contact with Ancient Greek artists.

The Terracotta Army found close to the tomb of China's First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang. Qin Shi Huang lived between 259-210BC and became the first emperor of a unified China

Since they were discovered by local farmers in 1974, experts have questioned whether the life-size models of soldiers were modelled on real warriors, or whether they came off a production line, with random individual details such as hairstyles, added to mark them apart.

The new documentary, 'The Greatest Tomb on Earth: Secrets of Ancient China', will be shown in the UK on BBC2 on Sunday at 8PM BST.

It suggests the inspiration for the Terracotta Warriors may have come from Ancient Greece.

'We now have evidence that close contact existed between the First Emperor's China and the West before the formal opening of the Silk Road ,' said archaeologist Li Xiuzhen, from the Emperor Qin Shi Huang's Mausoleum Site Museum.

THE TERRACOTTA WARRIORS The figures could have been influenced by Greek sculptors, who may have visited the site to train the locals The Terracotta Army is a form of funerary art buried with the First Emperor in 210 to 209 BC and whose purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife. Arguably the most famous archaeological site in the world, it was discovered by chance by villagers in 1974, and excavation has been on-going at the site since that date. An extraordinary feat of mass-production, each figure was given an individual personality although they were not intended to be portraits. The figures vary in height according to their roles, with the tallest being the generals. Current estimates are that there were over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which are still buried. Since 1998, figures of terracotta acrobats, bureaucrats, musicians and bronze birds have been discovered on site. They were designed to entertain the Emperor in his afterlife they are of crucial importance to our understanding of his attempts to control the world even in death. Advertisement

'This is far earlier than we formerly thought.'

'We now think the Terracotta Army, the Acrobats and the bronze sculptures found on site have been inspired by ancient Greek sculptures and art,' Dr Xiuzhen said.

Professor Lukas Nickel from the University of Vienna said statues of acrobats recently found at the same tomb also support this theory.

These could have been influenced by Greek sculptors, who may have visited the site to train the locals.

In May last year, archaeologists have used digital scanning techniques to help the enormous excavation in Xi'an, Shaanxi province.

They estimated the pit, which is thought to have been where the army's cavalry and archers were placed, also contained 89 war chariots along with statues of horses.

The Terracotta Warriors were found close to the tomb of Emperor Quin Shihuang in Xi'an in central China

This isn't the first time the theory of early Greek influence in China has been put forward.

In 2013, a School of Oriental and African Studies expert, Lukas Nickel said it is ‘likely’ the 8,000 giant sculptures were the result of contact between Greece and China.

He cited newly translated ancient records that tell of giant statues appearing in the West, which inspired Qin Shi Huangdi, as evidence that the warriors of the First Emperor were based on 12 earlier life-size statues.

‘It is perfectly possible and actually likely that the sculptures of the First Emperor are the result of early contact between Greece and China,’ he told LiveScience at the time.