The Terracotta Army in brief
The Terracotta Army lies near the city of Xi’an in Shaanxi Province, China, a short distance from the burial mound of Qin Shi Huang, who unified China in 221 BC and ruled as its first emperor until 210 BC. Three pits have been excavated, and they hold an army of life-size figures arranged in battle order. It was listed as a World Heritage Site in 1987, as part of the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor.
Discovery
In March 1974 farmers digging a well in a dry field during a drought, among them Yang Zhifa, broke into a pit and found the head of a clay figure and bronze weapons. Archaeologists soon arrived, and found a huge underground chamber. The excavation continues today.
The army
- Size. Estimates vary, but there may be more than 8,000 soldiers, and also horses and chariots, in the three pits. Around 2,000 or so have been dug up.
- Variety. The figures vary by rank and duty: generals, officers, infantry, archers who kneel, cavalry and charioteers. The faces and hairstyles differ, as if modelled on real people, though they were made from standard parts assembled together and then individually finished.
- Colour. The statues were originally painted in bright colours, over a layer of lacquer. When exposed to air, the lacquer curls and the paint flakes off within minutes, so that the figures that have been excavated look grey and brown. Conservators are looking for ways to preserve the paint.
- Weapons. Real bronze weapons, spears, swords and crossbow parts, were placed in the soldiers’ hands. Many are sharp and well made, and the weapons were looted in antiquity.
The emperor’s tomb
According to the historian Sima Qian, who wrote about a century later, work on the tomb began when the future emperor became king of Qin as a boy, in 246 BC, and later involved about 700,000 workers. It said that the burial chamber has a model of the empire, with rivers of mercury. Tests of the soil around the burial mound have found high levels of mercury, which fits with the account. The main tomb has not been opened, because of the risk of damage, and because techniques of preservation are not yet adequate.
Why it matters
The army shows the scale of the first Chinese empire, and how carefully organised its government was, with standard parts, weapons and measures. It also gives a view of the dress and equipment of its army, and techniques in metalwork and ceramics. In the afterlife the emperor would be defended by an army.
Visiting
The Museum of the Terracotta Army has three exhibition halls built over the pits, at Lintong, east of Xi’an and about 1.5 km from the emperor’s burial mound. Pit 1 is the largest, and visitors can see many soldiers in position.
Sources
- Portal, J. (ed.) (2007). The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army. British Museum Press.
- Sima Qian. Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian), chapter 6, the Annals of the First Emperor of Qin.
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor.