After more than one year's archaeological excavation, the accompanying pit for burying terracotta officials for Emperor Qin Shihuang was brought to light.

The pit, namely the No.6 one, was found near the southwest corner of Emperor Qin Shihuang's Mausoleum last May. With a total area of 144 square meters, it mainly stored colored pottery in the front tomb and horses in the rear tomb. Workers also discovered wooden carriages, terracotta figures, bronze halberd, pottery pots, horse bones and other decorative articles.

A total of 12 color-painted pottery figures were discovered. They feature a common characteristic of wearing high hats with none of them seeming to be picked general or soldier and everyone of them having such stationery as pottery-knife and grinding-stone by the side. This is the first time to have discovered these things.

So far, workers have discovered 179 different subordinate pits and all of them are of different shapes and sizes but strange enough is that none of them were found burnt down by the fire. So it is of great significance for the research of the burial system during the period of the Qin. This has proved further that the pits were not brought down due to the self-burning of the natural gas but by Xiang Yu, the Great Conqueror to grab wealth in the Qin Capital and the nearby areas when he was marching onto the then capital of the Qin Empire.

(People's Daily 09/28/2001)