The Terracotta Army was found by farmers digging a well
In 1974 farmers near Xi’an dug into an army of more than 8,000 clay soldiers. The emperor’s tomb next to it has never been opened, and the soil around it contains unusually high levels of mercury.
In March 1974, during a drought, farmers in Lintong, near Xi’an, were digging a well. About 1.5 km from a large earthen mound, they hit fragments of fired clay: a head, then pieces of bodies.
They had found the Terracotta Army.
An army for the afterlife
The figures were made for Qin Shi Huang, who unified China in 221 BC and became its first emperor. Three pits excavated so far hold, by a 2007 estimate, more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses, and 150 cavalry horses.
The faces were built from around ten basic moulds and then individually modelled, so no two soldiers look quite the same.
They were colourful
Today the army is earth-brown. Originally it was painted: red from cinnabar and iron oxide, white from burnt bone, and many other pigments. In Xi’an’s dry air, exposed paint can flake off in minutes, which is one reason excavation is slow.
Bring it up
“The tomb of China’s first emperor has never been opened. An ancient historian said it held rivers of mercury, and the soil there really is full of mercury.”
Follow the thread
- Same patternKazakhstan’s national symbol might be a woman Another spectacular burial found by chance that became a nation’s calling card.
- RelatedXi’an was once one of the largest cities on Earth The same region around Xi’an was the heart of Chinese power for a thousand years.
- RelatedCleopatra lived closer to the Moon landing than to the pyramids Qin Shi Huang and Cleopatra were separated by less than two centuries, and both ruled from places full of older monuments.
