When mentioning the places of historic interest and scenic beauty, many people think of China firstly which is famous for the magnificent Great Wall, brilliant Imperial Palace in Beijing and the exquisite Dunhuang grotto murals as well as the spectacular Terra Cotta Warriors in Qin Dynasty, to name but a few. If the overseas students come to study in Mandarin learning courses in China, one of the scenic spots they should never miss should be the Terra Cotta Warriors, which is the buried sculpture legion of the first emperor of Qin Dynasty.
In March of 1974, when the a production team members in Lintong County of Xii‘an city were digging a well, they found the pits for pottery figurines in Qin Dynasty in the 1500 meters east of mausoleum of the first Qin emperor, causing a great sensation in the world. At present, there are totally three pits for pottery figurines are found and more than eight thousand pieces of ceramic terracotta warriors were unearthed.
In the first pit for pottery figurines, more than one thousand pieces of ceramic warrior figures were unearthed now with the average height of 180 centimeters. There are also dozens of ceramic horses as large as the real horses in the pit. It is predicated that there are six thousand pieces of ceramic horses can be unearthed. The number of the ceramic horses unearthed in the second pit is also more than one thousand.
When the foreigners step into the third pit for pottery figurines during the period when they study in Chinese language school in China, they would be surprised by the large scale phalanx composed of multiple arms of the services. The function of the army is to be the symbolization of the guarding army, protecting the tomb of the emperor. The total eight thousand ceramic soldiers are composed of four arms of the services, holding actual combat weapons such as bow, arrow and crossbow in their hands.
All of those ceramic soldiers all seem powerful and full of strength. If you pay enough attention to the details, you will find that they are all different in expression, hair style and body gesture, from which you can tell that they are from different places of various minorities and characteristics. The discovery of those warriors proved the extraordinary skill in sculpture in Qin Dynasty and also provides rich materials to research the military, culture and economy in Qin Dynasty.