China's Ancient Warriors - Colleen Gus - April 1984

Colleen Gus

Imagine a chess set with life - size pieces. Imagine the pieces made out of clay, and painted to look like real life. Imagine them 2,000 years old, with Chinese faces, no two of them identical. And, instead of imagining 32 pieces, imagine about 7,500. Got it? Good. You've just imagined something like what has been discovered in the central part of China - not exactly a "chess set, but 7,500 statues of warriors and horses - a life-size army formed about 210 B.C. Chinese farmers near the Wei River first discovered this ceramic army in 1974 when they were digging a well. Although some of the statues were found whole, the majority were in pieces. Most of the statues were found in one large pit, which contained foot soldiers, horses and charioteers arranged in orderly rows. A nearby, smaller pit contained I cross bowmen and charioteers, while a third pit seemed to contain most of the officers - a sort of command center. - Information Supplied By: Herbert W Armstrong Library