Professor Julia Lovell

The Qin's former advisors filled his carriage with fish to cover up the smell.

Yeah, that's right.

The existence of the tomb itself is described by Sima Qian, who's arguably the most famous of ancient Chinese historians, writing in about 100 BCE.

But his history doesn't mention the warriors.

So modern archaeologists were amazed by what these farmers found.

It's arguably the most extraordinary archaeological discovery of the 20th century.

The area that the Mausoleum complex occupies below the ground is about 56 square kilometers.

So the pits containing the famous terracotta warriors are only a small part of this complex.

There's an artificial mound covering the emperor's tomb.

So nowadays it looks like a forested pyramid about 65 meters high, 350 square meters at the base.

And below ground, the tomb cavity was also surrounded by walls and by hundreds of other burial pits containing incredible things, of which the terracotta warrior pits are just a few.

Yes, that is a working estimate.

But there are also many other things down in the tomb complex.

So through much of Chinese history,

People want to be buried with items they think will guarantee them comfort and status in the afterlife, which could include servants and dependents like wives, as well as handy, desirable objects.

So I guess underpinning this idea is the belief that the afterlife will be very similar to the mortal world.

Now, like several ancient states, early Chinese societies practiced human sacrifice.

Here, the theory is that if servants and wives are killed...

placed in the tomb, they'll go on the journey to the afterlife with the deceased and serve him there.

But by the chin you also have the idea that you don't always have to have real human corpses down there to revivify in the tomb.