What you need to know about China's Terracotta Warriors and The First Emperor of Qin, there is thousands of clay soldiers guarding his tomb are enduring representations of the ruler legacy. In March 1974 a group of peasants digging a well in China drought Shaanxi province unearthed fragments of a clay figure. The first evidence of what would turn out to be one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of modern times. Near the unexcavated tomb of The First Emperor, who proclaimed himself First Emperor of China in 221 B.C.E. lay an extraordinary underground treasure an entire army of life size terracotta soldiers and horses, interred for more than 2,000 years.
The site, where The First Emperor ancient capital of Xianyang once stood, lies a half hour drive from traffic clogged Xian, population nine million. It is a dry, scrubby land, planted with persimmon and pomegranate bitterly cold in winter and scorching hot in summer and marked by dun coloured hills pocked with caves. But hotels and a roadside souvenir emporium selling five feet tall pottery figures suggest that something other than fruit cultivation is going on here.
Over the past 50 years, archaeologists have located some 600 pits, a complex of underground vaults, across a 22 square mile area. Some are hard to get to, but three major pits are easily accessible, enclosed inside Emperor Qinshihuang Mausoleum Site Museum, constructed around the discovery site and opened in 1979 as the four acre Museum of Qin Terracotta Warriors and Horses. In one pit, long columns of warriors, reassembled from broken pieces, stand in formation. With their top knots or caps, their tunics or armoured vests, their goatees or close cropped beards, the soldiers exhibit an astonishing individuality. A second pit inside the museum demonstrates how they appeared when they were found some stand upright, buried to their shoulders in soil, while others lie toppled on their backs, alongside fallen and cracked clay horses. The site ranks with the Great Wall and Beijing Forbidden City as one of China's premier tourist attractions.