The Archaeologist

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Terracotta Army: The greatest archaeological find of the 20th century

In March 1974, Chinese farmers digging a well unearthed the greatest archaeological find of the century - the buried Terracotta Army. After coming across a life-sized human head made of clay in Xi’an, China, archaeologists were called in to investigate. What they found was extraordinary. Thousands of life-like terracotta figures from the Qin dynasty, fashioned 2,000 years ago to protect the First Emperor of China in the afterlife. Archaeologist Li Xiuzhen has worked on the site since the 1980s. Her team was the first to discover that each warrior was originally painted in bright colours.