The Terracotta Army of the First Emperor

In the spring of 1974, farmers digging a well in the dry countryside of northern China struck fragments of hard-baked clay that turned out to be part of a life-sized human figure. The discovery led archaeologists to one of the most astonishing finds of the twentieth century: an enormous underground army of thousands of pottery soldiers, buried for more than two thousand years beside the tomb of China's first emperor. The site transformed understanding of the period and drew visitors from around the world.

The figures had been created to accompany Qin Shi Huang, the ruler who unified the warring states of China into a single empire in the third century BC and declared himself its first emperor. He was a man of immense ambition, responsible for standardising weights, measures and writing across his realm and for early work on what would later become the Great Wall. According to ancient accounts, he was also preoccupied with death and with the search for immortality, and he devoted vast resources to the construction of a tomb complex that would serve him in the afterlife.

The terracotta soldiers were a part of that complex, arranged in military formation in a series of underground pits a short distance from the burial mound itself. Estimates of their number run into the thousands, and they include not only infantry but also archers, cavalry and officers, along with horses and wooden chariots that have largely decayed. What has most amazed observers is the individuality of the figures: no two faces are exactly alike, and the soldiers vary in height, hairstyle and expression, so that the army gives an impression of a real body of men rather than a set of identical copies.

Producing so many distinct figures on this scale required an organised system of manufacture. Scholars believe that the bodies were made from separately moulded parts, such as legs, torsos and arms, which were then assembled and finished by hand, with individual features added afterwards. This combination of standardised components and hand-finishing allowed the workshops to achieve both mass production and variety. The figures were originally painted in bright colours, though most of this pigment has flaked away or faded after long exposure once the pits were opened.

The soldiers were also equipped with real weapons, including bronze swords, spearheads and crossbow mechanisms, many of which have survived in remarkable condition. The quality of the bronze work has impressed modern metallurgists, and some of the blades were found to be still sharp when excavated. These weapons show that the army was not intended merely as a decorative display but as a fully armed force meant to protect the emperor beyond death.

Despite decades of study, much of the wider tomb complex remains unexcavated, including the great burial mound believed to contain the emperor himself. Ancient writers described the interior of the tomb in vivid terms, claiming that it contained models of rivers and seas represented by flowing mercury and a ceiling decorated to resemble the heavens. Archaeologists have detected unusually high concentrations of mercury in the soil of the mound, a finding that appears to lend some support to these old descriptions, though the tomb chamber itself has not been opened.

Excavating the site presents serious difficulties. When the coloured surfaces of the figures are exposed to air, the paint can deteriorate rapidly, and specialists have been cautious about uncovering further areas until better methods of preservation are available. There is a widely shared reluctance to open the central tomb until it can be guaranteed that its contents would not be damaged in the process. As a result, a great deal of the complex has deliberately been left undisturbed for future generations with more advanced techniques.

The terracotta army has become one of the most celebrated archaeological sites in the world and a powerful symbol of ancient China. For historians it offers rich evidence about the military organisation, craftsmanship and beliefs of the Qin period, while for millions of visitors it provides a direct and moving encounter with the past. What began as the chance discovery of a few clay fragments in a farmer's field has proved to be a window onto the ambitions of a ruler who sought to command an empire even in death.