Probably one of the biggest archaeological digs in the twenty-first century, the find of the Terra Cotta Warriors changed scientist's ideas of the ancient Chinese culture, and brought new ideas to the table. Prior to digging up the Terra Cotta warriors, the people of the world thought China to be a very structured, and not a very religious state back in ancient times. This idea changed though to them thinking of China of a very religious place, with ideas coming from Egypt to form their religion. Although the Terra Cotta Warriors were found, the questions still are asked like, who were they from and what was their purpose?

What Was The Purpose and Who Built Them?

    The Terra Cotta warriors were made during the Qin dynasty of ancient China, a dynasty known for fighting. The Qin's biggest rival was the Mongolians, another group of warriors who were located just North of the Qin. The emperor Qin Shi Huang ruled the Qin dynasty during the building and completion of the Terra Cotta Warriors. Also, Shi Huang is regarded as the most famous emperors who ever ruled china because of his creation. Shi Huang only told his advisors his reasons for building the statues, but he did not tell his workers the reason, he was scared of the Mongolians. All during the rule of the Qin dynasty, the only people that could challenge the military power were the Mongolians, and Shi Huang was scared that the Mongolians would bring his own downfall. He constructed clay warriors out of terra cotta so that when he died, the warriors would be buried with him facing the north, the direction of the Mongolians.

How Were They Built and What Were They Made Of?

    In all 8,099 people, horses, and chariots were made, all with different faces and all very lifelike. It is said that each clay warrior represented an actual warrior from Qin Shi Huang's dynasty. The warriors were clay figures, each one of them painted by hand. Apparently, the figures were constructed by hand, and did not come from any kind of stencil or mold. The pieces also include horses with chariots, and these too are built with a quality like the other statues.

Why did the Chinese People Carry Out This Order?

    This would have taken and extraordinary amount of work from the Chinese people, but they are not known as slackers. With the Great Wall of China under their belt this task was easier but still very challenging. However, it is not known why the people actually carried through with this crazy assignment. The people were probably told something like the gods will banish you from heaven if you don't or something like that. About the only thing that could make the Chinese people do this was something religious, either that or a death threat. The average human today probably could not make one of those figures and then paint it, all by hand, in the time it took the Chinese to do it. Not only did the Chinese people do this, but they also had to dig the extremely large grave. All in all, this job was very large in scale and took years to complete.