LONDON, ENGLAND—A professor of East Asian archaeology at University of London asserts that Greek art was the inspiration for the 8,000 terracotta warriors that guard the mausoleum of China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi. According to Lukas Nickel, recently translated ancient texts indicate early contact between China and Greece, telling of the first emperor copying 12 huge statues that appeared in western China more than 2,200 years ago. Because large statues were not present in China before this time, Nickel infers that the idea to construct the sculptures was influenced by the conquest of Alexander the Great.