8,000 soldiers,buried in 210 BC,found again in 1974.

Questions worth
answering early.

• How long do I need at the Terracotta Army?

  Three hours is the right answer for most travellers, and the way the site rewards them. The museum hall first, where the conserved figures stand at body-distance, roughly forty minutes. Pit One next, the famous one, about forty-five minutes. Pit Three's command post twenty minutes. Pit Two, the cavalry and kneeling archers where a few figures still carry the original pigment, about thirty-five minutes. The bronze chariot gallery before you leave, twenty minutes; almost no coach tour fits it in. Less than three hours is checking a box; more than four asks the body more than the mind needs.

• How does ticket booking actually work?

  Tickets are timed-entry, released seven days ahead through the official Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum portal. The portal requires a Chinese phone number to confirm a booking, which is the wall most overseas travellers run into; there is no longer a same-day on-site purchase option. We book against your passport details under your trip, and the timed slot the portal returns is the slot we plan the morning around. What we cannot promise is which exact slot lands. What we plan for is the first window, before the coaches arrive.

• Is there a real fast-track or VIP entry?

  No. Touts at the car park and at Xi'an train station sell what they describe as fast-track; sometimes legitimate, often voided at the gate, always more expensive than the official portal. The museum does not operate a separate fast-track sequence, and we will not tell you otherwise. What works is the 08:30 first window before the coach lanes arrive at 09:15, with a ticket already in hand. That is the differentiator, and what we plan your morning around.

• Was the Terracotta Army really discovered by a farmer?

  Yes. On the 29th of March 1974, a farmer named Yang Zhifa was digging a well in Lintong District east of Xi'an during a drought. About three metres down he struck the head of a clay figure, and the well that followed turned out to sit inside what is now Pit One. Yang lived to sign visitor books at the site museum into his eighties. The army itself was buried in 210 BC, the year of the First Emperor's death.

• Why are most warriors clay-coloured instead of painted?

  Every figure was originally painted in mineral pigments over a lacquer ground: reds, greens, the famous Han purple, lifelike skin and clothing colours. When the lacquer is exposed to oxygen after two thousand years underground, it curls and the colour flakes off within minutes. The Site Museum holds a handful of figures whose colour was stabilised in time; most of the army on display is the clay underneath. Pit Two is where the pigment survives best, on a few of the cavalry and kneeling archers. The conservation rule for now is excavate slowly or not at all.

• Has the First Emperor's tomb been excavated?

  No, and probably not for a long time. The burial mound sits about twenty minutes east of the warriors, fifty-one metres of compacted earth covering a chamber the Han historian Sima Qian described in the first century BC as containing rivers of mercury. Soil-survey readings published since the 1980s show mercury concentrations consistent with that account. Chinese conservation policy keeps the mound sealed until non-invasive techniques exist that would not damage what is inside. The mound and its outer walls are visible from the site; the chambers themselves are not.

• Can I take photos in the pits?

  Yes. The pit galleries allow handheld photography during opening hours. Flash is prohibited, tripods and selfie sticks are not permitted, and a small number of rotating display cases are signed no-photo. Pit One's parapet sits high above the figures and works best for the wide rank shots; Pit Two's individual displays are where the colour and face detail land. Drones are banned across the museum complex. Your guide will tell you where the keeper-permitted angles are.