This morning we visited China’s greatest archaeological attraction, the terracotta warriors of the Qin Army. They stand in battle formation about 20 miles east of Xi’an. The life sized (and slightly larger) infantry men and archers, officers and their horses, symbolically guard the tomb of the first Qin emperor.

Well before his death in 210 B.C., Qin Shi Huangdi conscripted hundreds of thousands of his subjects to build a suitably impressive tomb. That tomb, beneath an artificial hill nearby, has yet to be excavated. But the novel conceit of guarding it with thousands of pottery soldiers was revealed by accident when local peasants dug a well. The discovery created a world-wide sensation.

An arched structure resembling an aircraft hangar has been built to protect the dig from the weather. Walkways permit the tourists a bird’s-eye survey of the site revealing the deployment of the troops and the crumbled state in which most of the figures were found. The vaults were badly damaged by fire, evidently a few years after they were built. Originally the colors applied to the figures were bright but they were mostly neutralized by the fire and the passage of centuries. The nearby museum displays many of the restored figures up close.