#39: The Terra Cotta Army
Sometimes it can be hard to believe that certain civilizations have existed on this planet for so many years… Through finding different historical artifacts, we are able to understand more things about certain groups of people from different time periods. But just because researchers find certain things in a specific state doesn’t mean that’s how they were intended to be.
The famous Terra-Cotta Army, made up of 9,000 soldiers, was buried with the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, to protect him in his afterlife. When found, some of the statues had become pigmented in an unusual way for being buried underwater. Chinese scientists studied this occurrence and found that the artists who created these sculptures used several layers of lacquer to coat the 9,000 sculptures in order to protect them.