Terra Cotta Army

The Terra Cotta Army (兵马俑) is the greatest Archeological discovery of the 20th century. It is located near Xi'an, the ancient Chinese capital, also the capital of Qin Dynasty.[1]

All the faces look different.

The characters stand for:

• 兵-Soldier
• 马-Horse
• 俑-Wooden Figure

How was this discovery made?

Some of the statues were discovered in the grounds.

In 1970's China one of the greatest discoveries of all time came about. In 1976, in the province of Shaanxi (China) farmers were digging in the ground for water wells. Unfortunately not finding much success with water, farmers stumbled on somethings little more solid then water. In fact the farmers found small bits of terra cotta buried in the ground, the farmers continued to dig and to their astonishment the small bits of terra cotta turned out to be human size ancient Chinese soldiers. The initial discovery of one soldier turned out to be hundreds then thousands. Eventually the farmers passed this discovery over in the hands of professional Archeologists.

What archeologist considered to perhaps be an average discovery, turned out to be a very large scale discovery. More and more soldiers were being dug out, it didn't seem to end. What is interesting is that not only soldiers were  being uncovered, in fact horses and chariots were also found.

References

[1] ...

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