50 free Terracotta Army trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Terracotta Army trivia quiz covers the clay legions buried to guard China's first emperor and unearthed by farmers digging a well in 1974. The easy questions are the ones any museum-goer knows: which emperor, which country, which city, what the figures are made of and roughly how many there are. From there the set goes underground: the four pits and what each contains, the eleven corridors of Pit 1, the ranks and hairstyles that tell soldiers apart, the ten face moulds, the sculptors who signed their armpits and the assembly-line method borrowed from drainage-pipe makers. The harder end is for archaeology fans: Sima Qian's account of mercury rivers and the soil tests that vindicated him, the looting blamed on Xiang Yu, the lacquer that curls in fifteen seconds of dry Xi'an air, Han purple and its Taoist alchemists, the chromium coating that turned out to be contamination, the Toyota-style workshops revealed by 40,000 arrowheads, the acrobats of Pit K9901, the debate over Greek influence, the mass grave of the workers, the 76-metre tomb mound that has never been opened, the UNESCO listing and the exhibitions that shut the British Museum's gates. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the army, the mausoleum and the pigments before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Qin Shi Huang, Ancient China and Archaeology quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Terracotta Army was buried to protect which ruler in the afterlife?
Qin Shi Huang
He was the first emperor of a unified China.
Q 02In which year did local farmers discover the Terracotta Army while digging a well?
1974
The find is the largest pottery figurine group ever discovered.
Q 03Outside which Chinese city was the Terracotta Army found?
Xi'an
The site is in Lintong County, Shaanxi province.
Q 04Roughly how many soldiers do the three main pits hold, according to 2007 estimates?
8,000
Plus 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, most still in the ground.
Q 05What determines the height of the individual figures?
Their military rank
The tallest figures are the generals.
Q 06Who led the group of farmers who found the first fragments while digging a well?
Yang Zhifa
He was digging with his five brothers and a neighbour about 1.5 km east of the tomb mound.
Q 07Which historian described the tomb's construction a century after it was finished?
Sima Qian
His Records of the Grand Historian never mentions the clay army at all.
Q 08How many conscripted workers did the ancient historian say the mausoleum project involved?
700,000
Work began in 246 BCE, when the future emperor was just 13.
Q 09What did the ancient account say flowed through the emperor's tomb in simulated rivers?
Mercury
High mercury levels in the mound's soil have since lent his account credibility.
Q 10Which rebel is blamed for looting and burning the mausoleum complex after the first emperor died?
Xiang Yu
Fire damage and missing weapons in Pits 1 and 2 seem to support the story.
Q 11Roughly how large is the whole necropolis, as measured by ground-penetrating radar and core sampling?
98 square kilometres
It was built as a microcosm of the emperor's imperial palace compound.
Q 12Has the emperor's actual tomb chamber been opened?
No, it remains unopened
Concerns about preserving its contents have kept archaeologists out.
Q 13How quickly can the lacquer on a newly excavated figure curl once exposed to the dry local air?
Fifteen seconds
The paint can then flake off within four minutes in the dry local air.
Q 21How many base facial forms have scholars identified among the warriors?
Ten
Clay was added after moulding to give each face individual features.
Q 22Which type of headgear marks out the cavalrymen?
A pillbox hat
Chariot drivers wear helmets and more armour.
Q 23Where did the sculptors sign their names on the figures?
In the armpits
Workshops had to inscribe their names on products to ensure quality control.
Q 24What colour were the warriors' faces originally painted?
Q 14On which side of the tomb do the warriors stand guard, and why?
East, toward the emperor's conquered states
The four main pits lie about 1,500 metres east of the burial mound.
Q 15How deep are the four main pits?
About 7 metres
Up to five metres of reddish sandy soil had accumulated over the site in two millennia.
Q 16How many parallel corridors run through Pit 1, the largest pit?
Eleven
The 230-metre-long pit holds the main army of more than 3,000 figures.
Q 17What does Pit 3 represent?
The command post with high-ranking officers
Pit 2 holds cavalry, infantry and war chariots as a military guard.
Q 18What is unusual about Pit 4?
It is empty, perhaps left unfinished
Its builders may have abandoned it.
Q 19What is thought to have crushed many of the figures found in fragments?
The collapse of the burnt wooden roof
Fire damage and burnt rafters were found in Pits 1 and 2.
Q 20How tall are the terracotta figures?
Life-sized, 1.75 to 2 metres
Officers are typically the taller ones.
Pink
Eyebrows and facial hair were black; the whole figure was lacquered.
Q 25Which synthetic pigment, a barium copper silicate, was used on the warriors?
Han purple
Stanford scientists linked its production to Taoist alchemists trying to synthesise jade.
Q 26The barium copper silicate pigment on the warriors made China the first civilisation to develop what?
A synthetic purple
The pigment was later found to occur naturally as the rare mineral effenbergerite.
Q 27How were the figures assembled?
Body parts made separately and luted together
Then they were placed in the pits in precise military formation.
Q 28What everyday product were the warriors' legs made in the same way as?
Drainage pipes
This makes the process a form of assembly-line production.
Q 29What did a 2021 morphological study suggest about the figures' faces?
They strongly resemble the region's modern inhabitants
Some scholars think the realism comes from modelling on actual soldiers.
Q 30What was found in Pit K9901, uncovered in 1999?
Terracotta acrobats
The muscular, loincloth-clad figures show an advanced grasp of anatomy.