Farmers Digging a Well in China Accidentally Found an Entire Army Buried Underground

In March 1974, farmers digging a well near the village of Xiyang outside Xi’an, China, began pulling strange fragments of fired clay from the ground. At first, the pieces looked like ordinary pottery, but the shapes quickly became more unusual. Some resembled parts of human figures, while others appeared to belong to horses. Local officials were notified, archaeologists arrived, and what had started as a simple search for groundwater soon became one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the 20th century. Beneath the farmland was an enormous underground military formation containing thousands of life-size soldiers, horses, chariots and weapons. The figures had been buried for more than 2,000 years as part of the mausoleum complex of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor to unify China. The site lies in what is now Lintong District, roughly 35 kilometers northeast of central Xi’an. The main army pits are about 1.5 kilometers east of the emperor’s burial mound, under land that had been used for agriculture for generations. The farmers had uncovered what would become known as Pit 1, the largest of the Terracotta Army excavation pits. Archaeologists began systematic work there in July 1974 and eventually determined that the pit measures about 230 meters long and 62 meters wide, covering roughly 14,260 square meters. It lies several meters below the modern ground surface and is believed to have originally contained around 6,000 terracotta warriors and horses, along with wooden chariots and large numbers of bronze weapons. The arrangement of the figures revealed that they were not simply decorative statues placed underground at random. The soldiers were positioned in organized military formations. Long corridors separated by packed-earth walls contained ranks of infantry facing east, while archers, chariots, cavalry and officers occupied different areas according to their roles. The layout appears to have represented a functioning Qin military force, recreated underground to accompany the emperor into the afterlife. Two additional major pits were discovered nearby in 1976. Pit 2 contained a more varied force, including archers, cavalry, infantry and chariots, while Pit 3 was much smaller and is often interpreted as a command center because of its layout and the presence of higher-ranking figures. Together, these three pits form the core of the site that visitors now recognize as the Terracotta Army. The soldiers themselves are one of the most remarkable aspects of the discovery. Most are approximately life-size, but they are not exact copies of one another. Hairstyles, facial features, armor, clothing and rank vary from figure to figure. Some soldiers wear heavy armor, while others appear in lighter clothing suited for different battlefield roles. Officers, archers and cavalry figures can be distinguished by their equipment and dress, giving the army the appearance of thousands of individual people standing together underground. The figures also looked very different when they were first created. Today, most appear gray or brown because their original paint has vanished, but archaeologists have found evidence of bright pigments including red, purple, blue, green and other colors. Many of the warriors were originally covered in lacquer and painted in vivid detail. Unfortunately, when some figures were exposed to air during excavation, the ancient coatings dried and flaked away very quickly. That conservation problem is one reason archaeologists remain cautious about excavating additional portions of the site. The Terracotta Army represents only one part of a much larger funerary complex built for Qin Shi Huang. Construction on the mausoleum began in 246 BCE, when he was still a young ruler of the state of Qin. After he conquered rival states and declared himself China’s first emperor in 221 BCE, the project expanded dramatically. Ancient historical accounts describe hundreds of thousands of laborers working on the complex, and modern archaeology has confirmed that the area included burial pits, walls, roads, ritual structures and numerous underground chambers. UNESCO notes that nearly 200 accompanying pits containing terracotta figures, horses, chariots and weapons have been identified within the broader mausoleum complex, while many other archaeological features remain buried. The scale of the site suggests that the army visitors see today represents only a portion of what was created around the emperor’s tomb. The emperor’s actual burial chamber is separate from the Terracotta Army pits. A large artificial mound marks the location of Qin Shi Huang’s central tomb about two kilometers west of Pit 1, but archaeologists have not fully excavated the chamber beneath it. Researchers have deliberately avoided opening the tomb because they are concerned that exposure to air could destroy fragile materials inside before modern conservation methods are capable of preserving them. Ancient historian Sima Qian described the tomb as containing models of palaces and landscapes, with rivers of mercury representing waterways. For centuries, parts of that description sounded almost mythical, but modern soil testing around the mound has found unusually high concentrations of mercury. That discovery has led researchers to take at least some of the ancient account more seriously, although the interior of the tomb remains largely unknown. The Terracotta Army was likely intended to protect Qin Shi Huang after death. The emperor had unified China through military conquest and centralized administration, and his burial complex appears to reproduce important elements of the empire he controlled while alive. The army standing east of his tomb can therefore be understood as a permanent military force created to serve him in the afterlife. The condition of the figures when they were discovered also revealed that the underground pits had suffered major damage in antiquity. Wooden roof structures collapsed, and there is evidence that parts of the complex were burned not long after the fall of the Qin dynasty. Many soldiers were found shattered beneath heavy earth and timber rather than standing upright. Much of what visitors see today has been painstakingly reconstructed from broken fragments. Conservators continue to assemble the statues almost like enormous three-dimensional puzzles. Fragments are cataloged, compared and gradually matched together until individual soldiers can be reconstructed. Some sections of the museum still contain partially assembled warriors, making it clear that the famous rows of standing figures are the result of decades of archaeological and conservation work rather than a perfectly preserved army found intact. The site changed dramatically after its discovery. China eventually built a massive protective structure over Pit 1 so excavation could continue while shielding the remains from weather. Visitors now walk along elevated platforms and look down across rows of soldiers stretching through the enormous excavation hall. The Terracotta Army Museum opened to the public on October 1, 1979, and the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1987. Today, Pit 1 remains the most visually impressive part of the complex. Long rows of reconstructed warriors stand in the same broad military formation created more than two millennia ago, while exposed earthen walls still divide the underground corridors. The scale makes it easy to forget how accidental the discovery originally was. There was no major expedition searching specifically for a lost army. There were simply farmers digging for water. Those farmers found broken pieces of clay, and those fragments led archaeologists to thousands of life-size soldiers buried beneath farmland near Xi’an. More than 50 years later, researchers are still studying the site, and large portions of the emperor’s underground world remain unopened.