Discovered in 1974 near Xi’an, the Terracotta Army—thousands of individualized figures with horses and chariots—guard the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang (r. 221–210 BCE). The complex reveals imperial logistics, craft standardization, and funerary ideology at the dawn of unified China.
In 1974, farmers drilling a well near Xi’an uncovered life‑sized figures—the vanguard of an underground army guarding the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang (r. 221–210 BCE), China’s first emperor. Excavations reveal thousands of soldiers, archers, cavalry, and charioteers arranged in battle formation across multiple pits, with armor, weapons, horse teams, and command ranks meticulously represented.
The figures were coil‑built and molded in parts, then assembled and finished by hand, leaving subtle individualization in faces, hair, and armor. Pigments (now largely lost) once painted flesh, textiles, and lacquered armor in vivid color. Standardized components—ears, hands, torsos—reflect imperial workshops’ mass production married to artisan finishing.
The pits are only outworks of a vast funerary landscape: inner tomb mound (unexcavated), ritual pits of acrobats and officials, bronze chariots, stables, and administrative quarters. Ancient texts describe rivers of mercury within the sealed tomb chamber; soil assays around the mound show elevated mercury, but the burial remains undisturbed for preservation reasons.
Exposure threatens pigments, clays, and lacquers; on‑site labs stabilize excavated figures, while climate control and careful lighting in the Emperor Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum permit close viewing. Research continues on workshop organization, pigments, and tool marks, deepening insight into Qin logistics and ideology.
