History

Farmers digging a well in 1974 found an emperor's 8,000-soldier afterlife army

Villagers near Xi'an, China, hit fragments of a clay figure while drilling for water during a drought and reported it to local officials. It turned out to be part of a buried army of thousands of life-sized terracotta soldiers, chariots and horses guarding the tomb of China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang. Each soldier's face is individually distinct, and archaeologists are still excavating the site half a century later.

Emperor Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum Site Museum, Terracotta Army — Discovered near Xi'an, Shaanxi, March 1974

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