The Terracotta Army

One terracotta warrior.

 Two terracotta warriors.

Hey, a whole army of them!

In 221 B.C., Qui Shi Huang became China’s first Emperor. He built the Great Wall. He believed that when he died he would take all the things buried with him to the other world. He had a vast army, and he wanted to take it with him so that he would stay powerful. That’s why he built the terracotta warriors. 

There weren’t only warriors, there were horses too. They were all beautifully made. It took many decades to make them all. 

The warriors were buried in deep pits. The pits have been made into a museum, which we visited. Having all those warriors looking at you was kind of scary.

It was also kind of funny (tee-hee). 

A lot of the soldiers were broken. And that was freaky. They looked like real dead people.

Can you see the bones? Qui Shi Huang had many of the people who worked on the pits killed, so they wouldn’t tell anyone where the pits were. He was a very cruel man and wasted lots of lives.

 

    

After the emperor died, his enemies attacked the palace and the tomb. They smashed the terracotta warriors, and took their weapons. After that, the warriors were forgotten. Grass grew over the pits.

A bleeding terracotta warrior. There actually used to be paint on all the warriors.

In 1974, a farmer digging a well found a terracotta warrior head. Archeologists came to study the area, and found the burial pits. The farmer who found the head was at the museum selling signed books. I can’t believe I shook the hand of the man who discovered the eighth wonder of the world!

They are still digging in the pits, looking for more warriors. Qui Shi Huang built 600 burial pits. Only 48 have been discovered.