The Terra-Cotta Army of
Emperor Qin
By Barbara Gotthelf • Photos courtesy of the author
For more than two thousand years, Chinese children have heard fantastic stories about
China’s first great ruler, Emperor Qin Shihuangdi (chin sure-hwang-dee). The stories told
about a great army made up of terra-cotta soldiers and of a burial tomb filled with jewels
and magical rivers that flowed to the sea.
In 1974, the Chinese made an amazing discovery—the stories about Emperor Qin and his
great army are not fantastic at all; they’re true. An army of more than eight thousand
soldiers made of terra cotta, a baked reddish clay, is buried fifteen to twenty feet beneath
the earth not far from the tomb pyramid where Emperor Qin is believed to be buried
along with riches of his dynasty.
People learned by accident that the stories about Emperor Qin were true. Farmers digging
a well in a field struck the head of a terra-cotta soldier. News of the discovery quickly
spread, and archeologists swarmed to the site in the central Chinese province of Xian
(she-ahn). After much effort was spent drilling core samples from the earth, archeologists
learned that about eight thousand terra-cotta warriors were buried in chambers beneath
the ground.
So far, archeologists have dug up and pieced together about one thousand of the soldiers.
The soldiers were damaged by raiding rebel armies shortly after their creation and also by
the collapse of heavy roof timbers over time. Also uncovered were about one hundred
wooden war chariots, about six hundred life-size terra-cotta horses, and thousands of
weapons. The soldiers stand about six feet tall, and each appears to have his own
individual personality.
“They’re all different, every single one of them,” says Dr. Donald Wood, the curator of
Asian Art at the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama. “Each soldier has his own
characteristics. Some are almost smiling; some look very stern. Some look like they are
middle aged, and some are very young. Each has his own little mustache and little
changes to his hairstyle.”
Dr. Wood says that the workers who
made the soldiers may have modeled
them after the real soldiers of
Emperor Qin’s army. The terra-cotta
horses buried alongside the soldiers
also have their own facial expressions.
The weapons the soldiers carry don’t
just look real—they are real. The
arrows, swords, and crossbows are
made up of special combinations of
metals. They are as sharp today as
they were twenty-two centuries ago.
The terra-cotta soldiers uncovered near
the tomb are very lifelike in appearance.
Emperor Qin’s terra-cotta army had at least two purposes. The army was designed to
protect Qin after he died. Dr. Victor Mair, a professor of Asian and Middle Eastern
Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, explains that the ancient Chinese had a very
strong belief in the afterlife. “When you die, that’s not the end of you,” says Dr. Mair.
“The army was meant to protect [Emperor Qin] in death, down in the underworld. That’s
why there were such incredible efforts to be realistic.” The more lifelike the soldiers
looked, Mair says, the more effective they would be in guarding the Emperor against his
enemies in the afterlife.
The army was also created to demonstrate Emperor Qin’s power while he was still alive.
Qin, who was born in 259 B.C., began construction of the army and tomb when he
became ruler at the age of thirteen. Archeologists estimate that it took as many as seven
hundred thousand people more than thirty years to complete the project. “Any emperor
worth his salt needs a bunch of soldiers to guard him. It shows how great you are,” says
Dr. Mair. “If you can mobilize seven hundred thousand people, that’s some kind of
indication of your power in life.”
Emperor Qin was powerful, indeed. In 221 B.C. Qin declared himself emperor. He ended
hundreds of years of fighting among the different states in China, and he unified the
country. Under Qin’s rule, people in China used the same form of money, the same
system of measurement, and the same written language. Qin even had all of the axle
widths in China made the same size so that all wheels would fit in the same ruts in the
roads.
While Qin made many positive changes in the country, he was also a ruthless leader who
ordered people to work on his huge projects. Historians believe that during Qin’s rule,
one out of every ten Chinese was put to work creating not only Qin’s terra-cotta army but
also 270 magnificent palaces. They also worked at connecting one of the greatest
wonders of the world—the two-thousand-mile-long Great Wall of China.
Despite his strength, Qin was ruled by his own fear of death. Later in life, he slept in a
different palace every night because he feared that people might try to kill him. Qin also
spent most of his life looking for the secret of eternal life. It was his own attempts to
avoid death that may have killed him. Some people believe that at the age of forty-nine
Qin drank a magic potion that was supposed to keep him alive forever. Instead, the potion
contained poisonous mercury.
Archeologists are convinced that Qin is buried in a spectacular tomb located inside a
tomb pyramid in the center of the field where the terra-cotta army was found. In ancient
Chinese history books, the tomb is called Mount Li, and is said to contain fabulous
jewels, miniature cities, and rivers of mercury that flow to a man-made sea.
There is reason to believe that the story of Emperor Qin’s tomb is true. Tests done on the
soil near Mount Li have shown unusually high levels of mercury. But archeologists have
no plans to excavate Mount Li. Dr. Wood says that before any serious digging begins,
scientists would have to set up at the site special chemical laboratories and climatecontrolled storage facilities to preserve what they find. Otherwise, he says, the treasure of
Mount Li might crumble before their eyes.
In the meantime, digging continues in the area near Mount Li. More and more soldiers,
chariots, horses, and weapons are being found. Visitors to China can see the terra-cotta
army in three special museums built above the site. And they can look to the tree-covered
Mount Li nearby and reflect on all the spectacular discoveries that are yet to be
uncovered.