Michael Capek - 21 Dec

Farmers digging in the dark pit were frightened. For centuries they had heard aboutevil spirits that lurked beneath the soil in this field. Strange things had beenseen here. Faces were said to have loomed suddenly out of the dirt when people haddug too deeply. Grasping hands had sometimes appeared. People had long whisperedabout these ghosts. Some thought they might be the guardians of the ancient emperor,whose tomb was nearby. Maybe it was the long-dead emperor himself!

LOCATION OF TERRACOTTA ARMY

The Terracotta Army is located near Xian, southwest of Beijing.

In March 1974 the farmers were digging a well near Xian, China. About 12 feet (3.7meters) down, they struck something. They cleared the dirt from around the object.A face appeared! Terrified, they soon saw the face was not that of a ghost at all.It was an amazingly real-looking head. They dug deeper and found otherlarge pieces of hard baked clay. These appeared to be the broken parts of an ancientwarrior statue.

The farmers were excited. This discovery was too important to keep secret!

terracotta a brown-orange clay

Workers gradually uncovered terracotta figures.

AN UNDERGROUND ARMY

Word of the amazing discovery spread fast. Soon from all over Chinabegan to arrive. They were excited to see the terracotta pieces the farmers had found.The statue pieces were different from anything found in China before. The head appearedto be of an ancient warrior. Tests showed that the terracotta was more than 2,000years old. The clay pieces had once been brightly painted, but the color faded quicklyonce exposed to light and air.

archaeologist a scientist who studies how people lived in the past by analyzing theirartifacts

Archaeologists unearth more terracotta warriors in 2009. Like during past excavations,theyneeded to be very careful not to damage the statues.

The archaeologists wondered if there might be more statues buried in the field. Theydug many test holes in the ground. Nearly every place they looked had more statuesand broken bits of terracotta. The buried statues were those of warriors in fullbattle gear. The archaeologists also found pieces of real weaponsswords, arrows,spears, and .

After months of careful digging, they found thousands of life-size warrior statuesburied in the field. But who could have made this incredible armyand why?

CROSSBOWS

Crossbows have been used as weapons in hunting and warfare for thousands of years.The first crossbows were invented in China about 400 BC, and possibly as early as2000 BC. Crossbows are smaller and easier to use than bows and arrows. Crossbowsspread throughout the world and changed the way people fought wars.

Months passed, and the dig grew wider and deeper. Searchers found in fourpits. The pits had once been rooms in a building buried under 6 feet (1.8 m) of soil.The floors of the pits had been paved with bricks. Beneath the bricks were pipesto drain away any water that entered the rooms.

There were thousands of warrior statues standing in the pits. The workers also discoveredpieces of terracotta horses and .

Archaeologists have pieced together a bronze chariot from fragments.

But the number of warrior statues surprised the workers most. The warriors seemedto be everywhere. Nearly all of them were broken into small pieces. It took archaeologistsand trained workers many months just to put one statue back together. Each ruinedwarrior had to be rebuilt by hand, like a huge jigsaw puzzle.

artifact an object used in the past that was made by people

chariot a light, two-wheeled cart pulled by horses

PIECES OF A PUZZLE

About 2,000 Terracotta warriors have been reassembled. The rest are still in piecesor lie buried. Experts think about 8,000 Terracotta warriors may have once stoodin the pits.