A MAJOR new exhibition on world religions at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum will be launched next week.

Imagining the Divine: Art and the Rise of World Religions will run from Thursday until February 18.

Exploring Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism, the exhibition will be the first to look at the art of the five world religions as they spread across continents in the first millennium AD.

A spokeswoman for the Ashmolean Museum said: “This exhibition will bring to light brand new research from a major project conducted in partnership between the British Museum and the University of Oxford, generously funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

“On display will be remarkable objects created when the iconography of each religion was still being developed.

“Art and imagery were central to the spread of these systems of belief, and the visual identity of each religion was formed by encounters and interactions between different faiths and other traditions.”

Two major exhibitions this year, Degas to Picasso and Raphael: The Drawings helped to boost visitor numbers, with more than 933,000 people coming through the doors.

It was more impressive than the 910,419 visitors in 2015/16, which placed the Ashmolean 37th nationwide in a list compiled by the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions.

The Watlington Hoard, a collection of coins and relics dating back to Alfred the Great, has also attracted visitors.