Discover Xi'an
Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum (Terracotta Army)
秦始皇帝陵博物院（兵马俑）
Three excavated pits hold thousands of life-size clay soldiers, horses and chariots buried to guard China's first emperor around 210 BC. It is the single sight that most visitors build a Xi'an trip around, and standing at the rail of Pit 1 explains why.
The story
What makes this place special
Farmers digging a well found the first figures on 29 March 1974, about 1.5km east of the burial mound of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor, at Mount Li in Lintong. The army was buried with him around 210-209 BCE. Estimates from 2007 put the pits at more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 draught horses and 150 cavalry horses, and excavation is still unfinished. Every figure was originally painted - fired bone white, cinnabar red, malachite green, azurite blue, Han purple - but once the lacquer ground is exposed to air it can curl within about fifteen seconds and flake away in minutes, which is the central reason archaeologists leave much of the site in the ground.
What you’ll discover
The site is two places a few kilometres apart, joined by a free shuttle, and the ticket covers both: the pits museum, and the tomb mound and Lishan Garden where the emperor himself is actually buried. At the pits you walk between four hangars. Pit 1 is the famous one - about 230m by 62m, eleven parallel corridors, more than 3,000 figures standing in rank - viewed from a raised gallery that runs round the inside of the shed. Pit 2 holds cavalry, chariots and infantry and is largely unexcavated, but its display cases hold the best-preserved individual figures, including the kneeling archer. Pit 3 is small, the command post. The fourth hall is the exhibition of the two half-size bronze chariots, the finest metalwork on the site.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- Do the pits in the order 2, 3, bronze chariots, then 1. Everyone goes to Pit 1 first because it is signposted first, which means Pit 1 is at its most crowded early and everything afterwards is an anticlimax. Reversed, you learn what you are looking at from the close-up figures in the cases and then walk into the big shed as a finale.
- In Pit 1, keep walking to the far western end of the gallery. The front rank at the east end is a solid wall of phones; at the back you are alone, and you can see into the restoration workshop where broken figures are being pieced together on the pit floor.
- The glass cases in Pit 2 are the only place you can get within a metre of a figure and see the individual faces, the tread pattern on the archer's sole, and surviving traces of pigment. This is the thing people regret missing.
- The tomb mound site is included in your ticket and almost everyone skips it. It is a wooded hill that has never been opened, with the Baixi and stable pits nearby - quiet, and it is where the emperor is.
- From the car park to Pit 1 is a walk of a kilometre or so through a commercial arcade. There are electric carts; take one if the walk matters, and note the exit funnels you through a long shopping gauntlet with no shortcut.
- Bring your own guide or an audio guide. The on-site labelling is thin, and the figures are visually repetitive without someone pointing out rank by headgear, the regional kiln marks and the missing weapons.
When to come
Be at the gate when it opens, or arrive after about 3pm. The coach groups from Xi'an all land between 10am and 1pm and Pit 1 is genuinely shoulder-to-shoulder then. Spring and autumn; the sheds are hot and airless in midsummer and the site is largely under cover so rain is not a problem.
Getting around
Manageable, with planning. The pit halls have lifts and ramps and the viewing galleries are level, so a wheelchair can see all three pits and the bronze chariot hall - this is one of the better-equipped major sites in China. Wheelchairs can be borrowed near the entrance, and electric carts cover the long approach from the car park. The real obstacles are total distance, the sloped ramps between hall levels, and the crush at the Pit 1 railing, where a seated visitor sees very little unless you arrive early. The tomb mound park is more spread out and partly on unpaved slopes.
Worth knowing before you go
Go in at 08:30 with the first wave: by 10:00 the Pit 1 viewing rail is three people deep. Pits are numbered 1-3 but the recommended order is 2, 3, then 1, saving the biggest hall for last.
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