The Terracotta Army: the eternal soldiers of Xi'an

Under the vast hall, thousands of faces turned towards you emerge from the earth, ranged in line in deep trenches. None is identical: here a kneeling archer, there an officer with a fine moustache, further off a horseman holding an invisible rein. All gaze at the horizon with the same grave calm, frozen for more than two thousand years in an endless wait. They guard a tomb that no one, even today, has dared to open.

The Terracotta Army is the assembly of some eight thousand life-size statues buried near Xi'an, in Shaanxi, to guard the mausoleum of the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. Discovered by chance in 1974, it ranks among the greatest archaeological finds of the twentieth century. To understand it is to enter the excess of a man who wished to reign over death as well.

A discovery owed to chance#

In March 1974, peasants digging a well near Xi'an, in the middle of a drought, struck fragments of terracotta and the head of a statue. They did not know they had just opened the door to a buried world. In the following years, archaeologists brought to light several pits containing an entire army in battle order, a mile from the emperor's burial mound.

Three main pits hold the bulk of the force: the first, the largest, lines up thousands of infantrymen; the other two gather cavalry, chariots and a command staff. The total force is estimated at about 8,000 soldiers, accompanied by more than a hundred chariots and several hundred horses, a great part of which still remains underground. The site, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1987, has yielded only a fraction of its secrets.

It is not an army that was found: it is a court, a whole empire, buried to serve a dead man as one serves the living.

Qin Shi Huang, the man who wanted eternity#

The patron of this army is Qin Shi Huang, born Ying Zheng, who completed the unification of China in 221 BCE by subduing the rival kingdoms. The first to bear the title of huángdì (皇帝, "emperor"), he imposed a unified script, currency, and weights and measures, and linked the northern walls into a first Great Wall.

Obsessed with immortality, he had his mausoleum begun as soon as he came to the throne. According to the historian Sima Qian, writing a century later, seven hundred thousand workers laboured on it. The emperor died in 210 BCE, perhaps poisoned by mercury-based elixirs of immortality; his dynasty outlived him by only a few years, swept away by revolts. But his army of earth still stood guard.

A people of clay, a thousand faces#

The feat of the Terracotta Army lies in its individualised realism: each soldier has his own features, hairstyle and expression, so much so that they were long thought to be portraits. In reality, the craftsmen combined standardised elements — bodies, heads, ears moulded separately — then retouched each face by hand, producing a striking diversity from interchangeable parts, a veritable production line before its time.

The statues were originally painted in vivid colours — red, green, blue, purple — almost all of which, alas, vanished on contact with the air upon excavation. The ranks distinguish the grades: tall generals, officers, archers, crossbowmen, charioteers. Many held real bronze weapons, spears and swords, some of which, chromium-treated, have kept their edge. It is an army of clay, but equipped for real war.

The sealed tomb and its rivers of mercury#

The most fascinating part remains invisible: the emperor's burial chamber, beneath a mound tens of metres high, has never been opened. Sima Qian describes it as a reproduction of the empire, with ceilings studded with stars and rivers of mercury representing the rivers of China, set in motion by mechanisms. A troubling detail: soil analyses around the mound have revealed abnormally high concentrations of mercury, lending credit to the ancient account.

The Chinese authorities have chosen not to excavate the main tomb, for lack of techniques able to preserve its contents — the vanishing of the soldiers' colours served as a lesson. The mausoleum thus keeps its heart intact, protected by its own toxicity and by the caution of archaeologists. The eternity the emperor sought he obtained in an unexpected way: not through his body, but through the mystery that still surrounds it.

An empire resurrected#

Today, the Terracotta Army draws millions of visitors and embodies, better than any text, the power of China's first imperial dynasty. Each unearthed soldier, each pit still intact, reminds us that an immense part of the past still sleeps beneath the soil of Shaanxi.

From the fields where peasants dug a well to the climate-controlled halls of a world museum, the Terracotta Army has transformed our view of ancient China. To discover it is to gauge the ambition of a man who wished to take his empire into the grave — and to learn Chinese is to be able to read on a bronze blade the name of a craftsman dead two thousand two hundred years ago, and to touch with a finger that eternity of clay.

FAQ#

What is the Terracotta Army? The Terracotta Army (兵马俑) is an assembly of about 8,000 life-size soldier statues buried near Xi'an, in China, to guard the mausoleum of the first emperor Qin Shi Huang. Each statue has an individualised face.

When and how was it discovered? It was discovered by chance in 1974 by peasants digging a well near Xi'an, in Shaanxi Province. Archaeological excavations then revealed several pits containing an entire army.

For whom was the Terracotta Army built? For Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, who unified the country in 221 BCE and died in 210 BCE. The army was to protect and serve him in the afterlife.

Why has the main tomb not been opened? Because archaeologists do not yet have techniques to preserve its contents. Ancient texts describe rivers of mercury, confirmed by abnormal mercury levels in the soil, which makes excavation delicate and dangerous.

Photo credits: the images used in this article come from Pexels and Unsplash and are royalty-free.