They are the terracotta army of Xi’an, China, one of the greatest archaeological finds of the twentieth century: it happened fifty years ago
On March 29, 1974, in a rural area of central China, one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century occurred, even if those who made it could not have known it yet. Digging in a field to create a well, a group of farmers found a large quantity of pieces of terracotta which were only a very small part of more than 8 thousand statues over two thousand years old, the so-called “terracotta army” of Xi’an, which today is one of China’s main tourist attractions as well as a UNESCO heritage site since 1987. Largely the terracotta warriors can be seen from above, still inside the pits in which they were found: above a hangar-like structure for aircraft was built.
The Terracotta Warriors (Emeric Fohlen / Hans Lucas)
The terracotta army is made up of thousands of more or less life-size statues representing warriors and horses arranged in battle attire. They were made for the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, the man considered the first emperor of China. Living between 259 and 210 BC, that is, more than 2,200 years ago, Qin Shi Huang – pronounced more or less “Cin Sciu Huan” – was the son of one of the kings who governed the regions into which China was divided at the time . During his lifetime he conquered the kingdoms neighboring him: this is why it is said that he unified China (and the word China itself probably derives from Qin).
The archaeological site where the terracotta warriors were found fifty years ago is near where the ancient capital of Qin Shi Huang’s empire, Xianyang, stood, about 35 kilometers from the current city of Xi’an. Not far from where the first pieces of the terracotta army were found is the emperor’s tomb, which has not yet been excavated by archaeologists: the Chinese authorities say that doing so would risk damaging its contents.
According to the beliefs of the time, the terracotta army was supposed to defend and fight for the emperor after his death. As a whole, the underground mausoleum complex covers an area of 56 square kilometers.
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The terracotta army is extraordinary not only for the large number of pieces that compose it, for its age and state of conservation, but also for how it was made. Each statue is composed of several parts, which were produced in series, but with different variations: the faces of the warriors for example are not all the same, dozens of terracotta faces were designed, each then created in large numbers. The position of the arms can also vary from warrior to warrior, as can the details of the clothing. Each statue can weigh up to 272 kilos in its entirety and reach almost two meters in height.
Probably an archaeological discovery like that of the Terracotta Army, if it occurred today, would immediately receive a lot of attention in much of the world. In China in 1974, however, things went differently. The group of farmers who actually discovered the site realized that they had not found just any shards, even though they could not imagine exactly what it was.
In 2009 one of them, Zhifa Yang, told the state newspaper China Daily that initially the head of a warrior was extracted, which was mistaken for a vase: «Another villager asked me to dig around delicately so he could take the “vase” home and use it as a container». Thus a first warrior was dug. The farmers then notified the authorities of the find, and Kangmin Zhao, an official working for a public body dealing with cultural heritage, went to check what had been found. Both Yang and his companions and Zhao are considered among the discoverers of the Terracotta Army, although in fact none of them took full credit for the discovery.
The Terracotta Warriors (Paul Spierenburg/laif)
Zhao took the first pieces dug out of the ground to a local museum and began reconstructing one of the statues, but initially did not notify China’s central government of the discovery. These were the years of the so-called “cultural revolution”, the great movement of revolt, persecution and internal purge desired by the Chinese dictator Mao Zedong between 1966 and 1976 to preserve the revolutionary ideology and eliminate every bourgeois and capitalist element in the government, in economy and in Chinese society (and at the same time the opponents of the communist regime): many objects and sites of historical value were destroyed because they were linked to China’s imperial past and Zhao feared that even the terracotta warriors could have met the same end.
However, news of the discovery was spread when a journalist from a state news agency who was traveling in Xi’an heard about it. The fears of Zhao – who died in 2018 at the age of 81 – turned out to be unfounded and a much larger excavation began than had been done up to that point. Within a few months, more than 500 statues were found, then many more. In 1975, a year after the discovery, the museum of the archaeological site was opened.
– Read also: The strange obsession with mangoes in Mao Zedong’s China
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