Farmers digging a well in 1974 found an army of 8,000 life-sized clay soldiers

In March 1974, farmers drilling a well near Xi'an, China struck fragments of a clay figure and unknowingly uncovered one of the 20th century's great archaeological finds: the buried funerary army of Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor, who died in 210 BCE. Each of the roughly 8,000 soldiers, along with horses and chariots, was individually sculpted with distinct facial features, and all were originally painted in vivid colour that mostly flakes away within minutes of excavation.

— Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Terracotta Army — Excavations ongoing since 1974