Terracotta Army

What it is

The Terracotta Army is a huge collection of terracotta sculptures of soldiers, chariots and horses, buried as funerary art with Qin Shi Huang, first emperor of China. Work on the mausoleum began around 246 BCE, and the figures were buried near his tomb around 210–209 BCE. They were discovered by farmers in 1974 near Xi'an and are now displayed in a museum built over the excavation pits.

Why it matters

The army shows the enormous scale of labour and military organisation the Qin state could command, and the emperor's deep concern with protecting himself in the afterlife. The historian Sima Qian, writing a century later, described the mausoleum's construction, and his account has helped later archaeologists and historians understand what they found.

Look closer

• Why would an emperor want an entire army made for his tomb instead of real soldiers?
• What does the individual detail in each soldier's face suggest about how they were made?
• What might the army not tell us about ordinary people's lives under Qin rule?