Lintong, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
兵马俑坑 · Bīngmǎyǒng kēng
Three pits of life-size clay soldiers, buried east of the First Emperor's tomb to guard it. Farmers digging a well found them in 1974.
Photo: Zossolino, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
In the dry spring of 1974, farmers from Xiyang village were digging a well south of their village when they brought up pieces of pottery and bronze arrowheads. The well had struck the south-east corner of a huge underground army.
This clay army has guarded the tomb of the First Emperor for more than 2,200 years. Pit 1 in front of you is thought to hold over six thousand figures. About a fifth of it has been excavated.
Part of The Terracotta Army and the First Emperor's Tomb. Also there: First Emperor's Tomb.
The pit museum has three pits under three roofs and one exhibition hall. All are on the same through ticket, which also covers the park round the emperor's tomb, 1.5 km to the west.
| Part | Ticket |
|---|---|
| Pit 1: the main battle line | Included |
| Pit 2: four kinds of troops, the kneeling archer | Included |
| Pit 3: the command post | Included |
| Exhibition hall: the stone armour | Included |
| Pit 4: begun and left empty | A boundary stone only |
| The emperor's tomb park (Lishan Garden) | Same ticket, free shuttle; it has its own page |
Pit 1 covers about 14,000 square metres, more than two football pitches. At the front stand three ranks of 68 men each: the vanguard. Most wear robes and no armour, dressed to charge fast.
Behind them, earth walls divide the pit into corridors holding 38 columns of chariots and infantry together: the main force. On the flanks and at the rear, soldiers face outward and backward to guard the sides.
The figures were once painted all over: pink faces, robes in red, green, purple and blue. Once dug out, the paint begins to change within 15 seconds of meeting the air and has mostly curled and fallen within four minutes. That is why you see bare clay.
The pit was roofed with timber and matting under a layer of earth. At the fall of the Qin (221–206 BC) it was set on fire, the roof came down and the figures were smashed. Most of those standing today were pieced together by archaeologists, shard by shard.
The find came at the end of March 1974. Zhao Kangmin of the Lintong county cultural centre was the first to recognise the fragments as Qin and began restoring them. In July the archaeologist Yuan Zhongyi arrived to lead the dig. The trial trench grew to 336 square metres and still had not reached the pit's edge.
The pit runs east to west and every man and horse faces east. Qin conquered the other six states by marching east out of its heartland, and the facing is usually read as the direction of those states.
Look at the earth walls for the marks left by roof timbers. The builders dug the pit, paved it with brick, raised the walls, laid beams and mats and covered it with soil. They built a barracks underground.
Pit 1 was stumbled on by farmers. Pit 2 was found on purpose: on 23 April 1976 the team located it by probing north of the east end of Pit 1. It is L-shaped, about 6,000 square metres, with some 1,400 figures and horses.
It holds four kinds of unit: crossbowmen standing and kneeling, chariots, a mixed force, and cavalry. About 108 riders each stand beside a saddled horse, the first Qin cavalry formation ever found.
The kneeling archer rests on his right knee with both hands at his right side, holding a crossbow that was made of wood and has rotted away. Being short and low, he survived best, sometimes with paint. Look at the sole of his shoe: the maker modelled the stitching, close in some places and wide in others.
In 1999 a kneeling archer with a green-painted face was found here. It is the only one known, and nobody has settled why.
Pit 3 is small, about 520 square metres, with 68 figures, four horses and one chariot. The soldiers are not in battle order. They stand facing each other along the passages like guards. Deer antlers and animal bones were found too, which scholars link to divination and sacrifice before a campaign.
Between Pits 1 and 3 lies a fourth pit, empty. One explanation is that when rebellion broke out in 209 BC the tomb's workforce was armed and sent to fight, and the work stopped. That is a conjecture, with no text to prove it.
A thousand men, a thousand faces? In 2014 University College London and the museum compared 3D models of 30 ears and found no two alike. The researchers themselves warn that 30 ears do not prove each figure is a portrait. Moulded parts finished by hand is the likelier answer.
The pigments include cinnabar, azurite and malachite, and a man-made purple, barium copper silicate. It does not occur in nature. Qin and Han (206 BC–AD 220) craftsmen fired it themselves.
For years it was said the Qin plated their weapons with chromium against rust. A 2019 study in Scientific Reports overturned that: the chromium comes from lacquer on the wooden shafts. The bronze kept well because the soil is slightly alkaline and fine-grained, and the metal is rich in tin.
In 2024 a fingerprint was found on a fragment from Pit 1. The museum and Shandong University concluded it was left by a young craftsman.
The hall stands in the pit museum area, on the same ticket as the three pits. It shows finds from all over the tomb park. The pit they are best known for, K9801, lies about 200 metres south-east of the tomb mound. A villager found it in 1996. At about 130 by 100 metres it is the largest pit yet found inside the park, and it is not open, so this hall is where you see what came out of it.
Only about 153 square metres have been dug, yet they gave up 87 suits of armour and 43 helmets, every plate cut from stone. A suit with its helmet weighs about 25 kg, far too heavy to fight in, and too slow to make in numbers. Scholars take them for burial goods, not equipment.
Look at the helmet. None of the soldiers in the pits wears one, and people used to say the Qin army fought bare-headed. These stone helmets show that the Qin did have them.
| Year | Here | Elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| 246 BC | Ying Zheng becomes king of Qin at 13; work on his tomb begins | In India, Ashoka is setting up pillars carved with his edicts |
| 221 BC | Qin conquers the six states and unifies script, weights and measures | Rome and Carthage are between their first two wars |
| 218 BC | Tomb-building and imperial tours go on together | Hannibal takes his army and elephants across the Alps |
| 212 BC | Work starts on the Epang Palace | Archimedes is killed by a Roman soldier at Syracuse |
| 210 BC | The First Emperor dies on tour and is buried at Mount Li | Rome is fighting Carthage in Spain |
One line to remember: the year Hannibal crossed the Alps, this clay army was being fired at the foot of Mount Li.
These are stories people tell about this place. They are legends, not history, and each one says where it comes from.
When the farmers digging the well in 1974 brought up the first clay head, they took it for an earth god and feared they had disturbed him. Old people in the village hung up red cloth and burned incense.
Source: Accounts given by the villagers to Chinese reporters in later years
The soldiers of the rebel Xiang Yu broke into the pits in 206 BC, took the bronze weapons from the hands of the clay men, and set the roof on fire.
Source: A common explanation. The histories say only that Xiang Yu burned the Qin palaces and dug into the tomb; they never mention the pits
Later, people who live here will be able to add the stories they grew up with, and say which of these they have heard.
Last checked 2026-11-11. Travel and news reports, not the site's own notices.
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