Discovered in 1974 by local farmers in Xi’an, the Terracotta Warriors are a collection of terracotta (baked-earth) sculptures that served as funerary art and were buried with Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. The warriors are meant to represent the armies of the emperor and protect him in the afterlife. The Terracotta Warriors date from the late third century BCE, built in workshops by government laborers and local craftsmen – different body parts such as heads, arms, legs, and torsos were created separately and then assembled as life-sized figures and placed in the burial pits in precise military formation. They vary in height, uniform, and hairstyle in accordance with rank, and were originally painted with bright pigments of pink, red, green, blue, black, brown, white and lilac. Many also held real spears, swords, or crossbows, although most of the original weapons were either looted or rotted away.

In addition to the warriors, other terracotta non-military figures were found in the mausoleum such as officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians. The three pits containing the warriors are estimated to have originally held over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses, and 150 cavalry horses. The Terracotta Army has been described as the only other set of historic artifacts (along with the remnants of wreck of the RMS Titanic) that can draw a crowd by the name alone. Collections from the mausoleum have been loaned out for international display, and "The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army" exhibition at the British Museum in 2008 brought the most visitors to the museum since the King Tutankhamun exhibition in 1972.