The Terracotta Army

In March 1974 farmers from Xiyang village struck terracotta fragments while looking for water. Excavation revealed three pits holding more than eight thousand soldiers, a hundred and thirty chariots and six hundred horses, drawn up in battle formation to guard the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, who died in 210 BCE. Each face is individual, assembled from standardised modules then reworked; the bronze weapons found were still sharp. The imperial mound itself, described by the historian Sima Qian as an underground palace with rivers of mercury, has never been opened.