The Terracota Army

Qin Shin Huangdi was obsessed with immortality and sent teams throughout China to search for thee elixir of life. He died in 210BC. As a teenage king he began the 56 square kilometer walled burial ground outside Xian, using 700,000 conscripts and completed it 30yrs later. Dr Anne Birchall, the first western archaeologist to visit the site after its discovery in 1974, reminded us that the first Emperor of China has left us with a number of questions as well as answers. Although the Qin dynasty was short lived it brought all of China together and founded a style of government that survived until the 20th century. As well as military success, the Emperor built palaces, roads and sections of the Great Wall of China; he standardised coinage, script and measures. Xianyang was the first capital. He encouraged writings in agriculture, divination and medicine, but ordered that all previous books be burned using outspoken scholars as tinder. Large enough to house three jumbo jets, the underground vaults contain evidence of the emperor's plans for the afterlife: thousands of warriors, wearing terracotta leather jerkins, probably painted in green with rustic red or trendy lilac. Weapons including crossbows, arrows dagger axes and swords, wooden chariots and pottery horses, all alongside aids to relaxation- acrobats, musicians and bronze waterbirds. Dr Birchall emphasised that although the warriors faces and headgear had a variety of features they are only ten different factory assembled (with personal touches). She told how there are as yet many more areas for excavation and the story is not yet complete.