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Terracotta Army Facts

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Below are some of the facts about the Terracotta Army:

  • Terracotta army is a massive burial tomb that was built for the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. He spend his life looking for immortality and in order to save his life after death he built the massive army of 8,000 soldiers.
  • Aside from the 8,000 life size soldiers in the tomb, there are 130 chariots, 150 cavalry horses and 530 horses.
  • The height of the soldiers ranges from 5 feet 11 inches to 6 feet 7 inches. The best part of it is that none of the two soldiers face look alike. There are soldiers of different ages, hair styles, and ranks. Some look calm while others are ready to fight.
  • The clothing and dresses of the cavalry is different from the foot soldiers. There are some foot soldiers who are not wearing armor.
  • These tomb was discovered by a group of farmers who went to the site for digging a well. They were discovered in 1974 almost 2200 years after they were built.
  • Along with the soldiers there are 40,000 bronze weapons too that were used during those days. The condition of the weapons are still good even though they had been underground for almost 2000 years.
  • The battle axes, arrowheads, crossbows, and spears seem to be new may be because they were covered in chrome plating. It shows how advanced the ancient Chinese were.
  • The total area of the tomb is huge and the army found is only 1% of the total area. Excavation is still carried on and new things are expected to found.
  • It is believed that more than 700,000 artisans worked for crating the Terracotta army. It took almost 40 years for them to complete the task.
  • Every laborer had to stamp the warrior they had created. May be this was done to find who crafted the soldier if any defective warrior was found.
  • At first, when the army was excavated they were painted. However, shortly after the paints fell off may be due to the coming in contact with fresh air.
  • The project was started by the Emperor as a secret project and hence many of the laborer and artisans were killed during construction of the project.
  • Apart from the army there are team of entertainers, acrobats, musicians and men from every sphere of life found there.
  • The horses in the army were saddled which means that this practice was prevalent even during that period.