THE EMPEROR’S SECRET ARMY
The spring of 1974 was hot and dry in Shaanxi province, north central China. As rivers dried up and the water table dropped, those who lived off the land were growing increasingly desperate for new sources of water, and farmers set to work digging new wells. In late March one of them noticed something strange: as he dug down, the colour of the soil was changing. Five metres below the surface he uncovered a terracotta face. Word spread fast, and by July a team from Beijing had begun a thorough investigation. They soon found a vast number of shattered, life-sized terracotta figures. The news spread across the world in a flash: the farmer had stumbled across one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century.
One mile to the west loomed the man-made mound housing the tomb of Qin Shihuangdi, called the First Emperor. Within a few months of digging it became clear that this collection of terracotta figures was linked with his tomb. In fact, it was an entire army created “to guard Qin Shihuangdi’s tomb,” says Jane Portal, keeper of Asia collections at the
