5 Surprising Facts About The Terracotta Army

Scientists have been studying the clay warriors of Emperor Qin Shi Huang for almost half a century, but there are still more questions than answers.

In 1974, Chinese peasants were looking for water near Mount Lishan. When they began to come across fragments of pottery, at a depth of about 4.5 meters in reddish soil, this did not surprise them: the region had a rich history of settlement. However, the peasants soon stumbled upon something that seemed to them to be a whole clay pot. Having cleaned the object, they were dumbfounded: the head of a ceramic warrior looked at them menacingly from the ground.

• 1. The Terracotta Army owes its beautiful name to decomposed paint

  The archaeologists who arrived at the site began excavations, as a result of which more than 8,000 sculptures were discovered, and they were in full size. There were soldiers, acrobats, horses and two gorgeous bronze chariots. The sculptures are red-brown in color because they are made of terracotta, the fired but unglazed red ferruginous clay; hence the name of the underground army. However, initially the figures were colored - the paint was preserved in the ground, but quickly collapsed upon contact with air.

• 2. Faces of soldiers are not repeated

  Each warrior has individual traits. Some archaeologists explain this by the fact that the sculptors used casts of the faces of real soldiers of the emperor. And they used everyone! Although another version is more likely: there were about a dozen basic prints, and individual features were added along the way.

• 3. The army was created during the entire period of the reign of its ruler

  As scientists have established, the find was related to the burial of the founder of the Qin dynasty - Qin Shi Huang. He is also called the first emperor of China.

  Qin Shi Huang was born in 210 BC and lived for 49 years, 37 of them – he was in power. The work on the Terracotta Army began long before his death. Scientists believe that it took 30-40 years to create it with the participation of about 700 thousand people.

• 4. Not listed

  It is surprising that neither the appointment of the Terracotta Army nor it itself is mentioned in the annals, despite the fact that the ancient Chinese diligently led them in relation to everything else.

• 5. Mausoleum with rivers of mercury

  Unlike the Terracotta Army, the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, discovered next to it, is documented, and in great detail. A text from the Han Dynasty called "Records of a Great Historian" tells about it. Hidden under a man-made hill, the building has an incredible area of ​​​​98 sq. km. and is a model of the emperor's possessions.

  “The Great Historian” writes that there are even rivers and lakes filled with mercury, in which water circulated thanks to pumps. It is not clear how and why the pumps worked. The mausoleum was clearly not intended for visits. Again, the chronicle speaks of numerous traps designed to stop the tomb robbers.

  Until now, archaeologists have not begun excavations of the mausoleum, but radar studies indicate that it is intact. So one of the greatest archaeological discoveries is yet to come.