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In the Anavlochos mountain range in eastern Crete, archaeologists have found hundreds of ancient terracotta fragments, mostly from female figurines, that were left as votive offerings in natural rock cavities in the seventh century B.C. Within one of these cavities was a more peculiar collection of well-worn objects, including a terracotta plaque of a woman and a steatite bead that likely both date to the eighth century B.C., as well as a seventh-century B.C. terracotta horse figurine. The cavity also contained a three-sided Minoan sealstone dating to between 1850 and 1700 B.C.—at least 1,000 years earlier than the other items....

An art museum collaborates with expert chemists to investigate a Tang dynasty dancing horse.In order to solve a 1,300-year-old mystery, the Cincinnati Art Museum requested help from a University of Cincinnati scientist.The Chinese dancing horse sculpture at the museum is so lifelike that it seems to be ready to gallop off its pedestal. However, H ou-mei Sung, an expert in East Asian art, questioned the authenticity of a decorative tassel on the terracotta horse’s forehead that resembled the horn of a mythical unicorn.Pietro Strobbia, an assistant professor of chemistry at the UC College of Arts and Sciences, was contacted by...

Archaeologists have recently discovered the most complete ancient crossbow to date in the terracotta army pit one in Xi'an, Shaanxi province. Among hundreds of pieces of crossbows unearthed in the past, this one is said to be the best-preserved in general, with a 145cm arch and a 130cm bow string. The bow string has a smooth surface which experts believe to be made from animal tendon instead of fabric and the trigger mechanism is made of bronze, according to Shen Maosheng, head of the archaeological team. Shen also points out that this new discovery sheds light on how Qing, two...

According to China.org.cn, the tomb complex covers an area measuring 173,325 square metres, stretching 550m in length and 310 meters in width, and is the second largest tomb to have ever been discovered in the country... Qin Shi Huang (260-210BC) was the first emperor to unify China and enact major economic and political reforms across the country. China had previously consisted of a multitude of warring states and kingdoms, each under the control of feudal overlords, leading to much instability... After the death of Qin Shi Huang's father, he took the throne at the age of 13. His mother took...

Tomb of 1st emperor's grandmother unearthed www.chinaview.cn 2006-07-29 20:19:32 XI'AN, July 29 (Xinhua) -- After more than a year's excavation and research in a large tomb in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Chinese archaeologists have concluded that the tomb belonged to the grandmother of Qinshihuang, the country's first emperor.   Zhang Tian'en, an expert with the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeology Institute, told Xinhua on Saturday that the tomb was chronologically the closest to the mysterious mausoleum of Qinshihuang, and was probably built on the emperor's orders. "We are hoping that the excavation of his grandmother's tomb will help unravel the mystery about...

JAN 10, 2003 Five more chambers of first emperor's tomb found Rooms are even bigger than pits that hold his terracotta armyBEIJING - Archaeologists say they have found five more chambers in the sprawling tomb complex of China's legendary first emperor - rooms even bigger than the pits that hold his famed terracotta army. Qin Shihuang is credited with creating the first Chinese empire in 220 BC after conquering neighbouring kingdoms. His tomb near the city of Xi'an has not been opened, but the thousands of life-size clay soldiers unearthed in the 1970s are a major tourist attraction. Archaeologists...

Tomb scan reveals buried treasure Thursday, October 20, 2005; Posted: 1:02 a.m. EDT (05:02 GMT) Some of the terra cotta soldier statues found around Qin's tomb. BEIJING, China (AP) -- A magnetic scan of the unopened tomb of China's first emperor has detected a large number of coins, suggesting Emperor Qin was buried with his state treasury, a news report said Thursday.

With its tales of buried treasure and the elixir of youth, the recent movie "Myth" has heightened interest in the mystical Mausoleum of Qinshihuang (259-210 BC). Starring Hong Kong actor Jackie Chan as an archaeologist, the film focuses on what could be hidden within the tomb, which was built more than 2,000 years ago... "It is the best choice to keep the ancient tomb untouched, because of the complex conditions inside," said Duan Qingbo, archaeologist and researcher in the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeology Institute. Duan, who is also the head of the archaeological team working on the ancient mausoleum, told China...

XIAN, China: The tomb of China's first emperor is potentially one of the most spectacular on Earth, but a heated debate is developing over whether to excavate it at all. Chinese archaeologists have expressed concern that they do not currently have the expertise to properly preserve what they find inside the tomb - located in China's central province of Shaanxi – but new technologies may be closing that gap. Qinshi Huang's enormous tomb complex is the home of Xian's famed terracotta warriors; 8,000 life-size figures that were discovered by accident in 1974. The tomb itself, though, has not yet been...

Mysterious building discovered in emperor's tomb Last Updated(Beijing Time):2007-07-01 10:33 Chinese archaeologists said that after five years of research they have confirmed that there is a 30-meter-high building buried in the tomb of Qinshihuang, Chinese first emperor more than 2,000 years ago. The building, buried in the 51-meter-high, pyramid-like earth above the tomb's main body underground, has four surrounding stair-like walls and each wall with nine steps of platforms, said Duan Qingbo, a researcher with Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology. The whole building were buried under the earth, which made it difficult for researchers to get a complete picture of it,...

5 guesses on Emperor Qin Shihuang's tomb Qin Shihuang holds a central place in Chinese history for being the first emperor who united the country. He is also well known for his part in the construction of the spectacular Great Wall and his splendid terracotta army. To ensure his rule in the afterlife, this emperor commanded more than 700,000 conscripts from all parts of the country to build him a grand mausoleum as luxurious as any of the palaces he had in mortal life. Legend says that numerous treasures were placed in the tomb. As time passed, no one knew...

Archaeologists have found the remains of an ancient imperial palace near the tomb of emperor Qin Shi Huang, home of the famous terracotta army, China's state media reported on Sunday. The palace is the largest complex discovered so far in the emperor's sprawling 22 square-mile (56 square-km) second-century BC mausoleum, which lies on the outskirts of Xi'an, an ancient capital city in central China, an associate researcher at the Shaanxi provincial institute of archaeology told China's official news wire Xinhua. It is an estimated 690 metres long and 250 metres wide – about a quarter of the size of the...

MessageToEagle.com - A Mexican archeologist hunting for a royal tomb in a deep, dark tunnel beneath a towering pre-Aztec pyramid has made a discovery that may have brought him a step closer: liquid mercury,' according to Reuters' report. In the bowels of Teotihuacan, a mysterious ancient city that was once the largest in the Americas, Sergio Gomez this month found "large quantities" of the silvery metal in a chamber at the end of a sacred tunnel sealed for nearly 1,800 years. "It's something that completely surprised us," Gomez said at the entrance to the tunnel below Teotihuacan's Pyramid of the...

From The Times (UK)August 22, 2007 Inside the Emperor’s underground palace Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent It covers an area the size of Cambridge but so far only a tiny proportion of the site of the First Emperor of China’s underground palace for the afterlife has been excavated. Now Chinese archaeologists have used computerised imagery to complete a 3-D reconstruction of the giant tomb that lies 30 metres beneath a mound, with the Qinling mountains in the background. The dramatic imagery has been made available to The Times by the historian John Man, before he publishes pictures and a detailed description...

Most of the horses in the terracotta army in a Chinese emperor's tomb had no testicles, pointing to the possibility of equine castration some 2000 years ago. Yuan Jing, an archaeologist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, studied the more than 600 terracotta horses within the tomb of Qinshihuang, the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, who ruled from 221 BC to 207 BC. He noted that all the 520 horses that pulled chariots had penises but no testicles. However, some of the 116 cavalry horses were found to have testicles. Yuan said his findings gave some indication of...

Since then, archaeologists have puzzled over how ancient artisans produced the estimated 7,000 lifelike clay soldiers, right down to their stylish goatees and plaits of braided hair. Some have suggested that the statues were modeled after real, individual soldiers; others think they were assembled from standard clay ears, noses, and mouths, similar to the Mr. Potato Head toy. Photograph by O. Louis Mazzatenta, National Geographic Creative Recently, in a project known as Imperial Logistics: The Making of the Terracotta Army, a team of archaeologists from University College London (UCL) in Britain and from Emperor Qin Shi Huang's Mausoleum Site Museum...

A recently excavated tomb in Nanjing has been confirmed to be the grave of Zheng He, a eunuch from the early Ming Dynasty who led historic voyages to Southeast Asia and eastern Africa. The tomb was discovered accidentally on June 18th by workers at a construction site near Zutang Mountain that also holds the tombs of many other Ming Dynasty eunuchs, the Yangtse Evening News reported. The tomb was 8.5 meters long and 4 meters wide and was built with blue bricks, which archaeologists said were only used in structures belonging to dignitaries during the time of Zheng He. But...

Inside a 2,100-year-old pit, archaeologists have discovered a miniature army of sorts: carefully arranged chariots and mini statues of cavalry, watchtowers, infantry and musicians. They look like a miniaturized version of the Terracotta Army — a collection of chariots and life-size sculptures of soldiers, horses, entertainers and civil officials — that was constructed for Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. Based on the design of the newfound artifacts, archaeologists believe that the pit was created about 2,100 years ago, or about a century after the construction of the Terracotta Army. The southern part of the pit is filled with...

The emperor's "afterlife army" just got bigger.Archaeologists have uncovered more than 20 new Terracotta Warriors, life-size figures built to protect the first emperor of China in the afterlife.The Terracotta army is thought to consist of 8,000 sculpted "warriors" located in three pits about a mile northeast of the mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shi Huang (259 B.C. to 210 B.C.), who unified China in 221 B.C. Archaeologists have excavated about 2,000 of these lifelike soldiers, which were buried with weapons such as crossbows, spears and swords, some of which still intact.Qin Shi Huang became king of Qin in 247 B.C., one...

This site is famous for the Terracotta Army that was built to protect Qin in death However, his tomb has never been opened for fear of damaging the contents Chinese scientists have proposed to scan the complex with muon radiation This is formed when cosmic rays interact with particles in the upper atmosphere Measuring the muon flux will allow an image to be made like an 3D X-ray scan