Little wonder that eyes goggle. Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler is guaranteed to make spectators stare like ancient Mexican gods. Myth comes to life at the British Museum as, in the climax to a series of turnstile-spinning exhibitions that have focused on the lives of four of the world’s great historical rulers, the tragic last emperor of the Aztecs becomes the subject of a show.

Moctezuma, who from 1502 to 1520 presided over a vast, politically complex and culturally sophisticated empire, was seen by his people as more than just a fine warrior and cunning administrator. He was a semi-divine figure whose sad and mysterious downfall at the hand of Spanish conquerors was a turning point of his nation’s history.

His story has never been looked at through an exhibition before, however. It was considered impossible.

The Spaniards destroyed the records of the culture that they smashed. They left us with only their version of events: the story of exotic savages whose dark and bloodthirsty culture crumbled under the might of the proselytising Christian invaders.

The dramatic story is told with elaborate painted screens and mother-of-pearl encrusted panels that are being lent to this country for the first time.

This is the clichéd view that thousands queued to marvel at six years ago when the Royal Academy staged its own Aztec show. But the story of the Mexicas (as the Aztecs, apparently, should more correctly be called) has another side as continuing excavations beneath the modern-day sprawl of Mexico City continue to reveal.

The British Museum capitalises on the wonder that the Royal Academy first awakened and offers us an alternative reading of the story, revealing glimpses of this pre-Hispanic culture in all its many varied aspects from its sacrificial practices to its personal hygiene.

It is not that Moctezuma misses out on the atmosphere. Here are exquisite gold treasures, mysterious turquoise masks and mosaic-adorned skulls, fanged and feathered carvings of fierce animal deities, vessels used in ritual sacrifice.

Here, with the help of huge filmic projections and an evocative soundtrack, images are conjured of pyramids flowing with the blood of slaughtered captives, of priests performing their rituals in the freshly flayed skins of the dead, of great eagle gods soaring ever sunwards and obsidian mirrors reflecting black omens.

Many of the objects in this show have a visceral impact. How can you not respond to the grin of the skull? It speaks on an atavistic level.

The less obviously sensational works in this show are sometimes worth study. The catalogue is well worth buying.

A vast lump of intricately carved volcanic rock describes the complex fire ceremony that celebrated the triumph of the sun. A breastplate, which looks completely unremarkable, protected the heart of the Spaniard who led the massacre that proved the turning point of events. One of history’s most dramatic moments is reflected through the dull gleam of its metal.

As the visitor snakes through the show, he unfolds the tale of a man who, far more than the exotic savage who met him at the entrance like some tribal dancer in the foyer of a tourist hotel, is the architect of one of the world’s most fearsome monuments; the leader of an elite group of warriors and an intermediary of the gods. Freed from the patronage of European history, the emperor until now famous only for lending his name to stomach upsets (Montezuma is an anglicised corruption of his name) emerges as a man who understood how to manipulate the symbols of power in a culture in which nature and society, emperor and cosmos, were intertwined.

This is the figure who will be fascinating audiences this autumn. Moctezuma looks set to be another blockbuster.

Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler opens at the British Museum on September 24