Terracotta Army Puzzle
After more than 2000 years, the terracotta army, built to guard Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, was a bit like an enormous 3-D puzzle made up of fragments of 8,000 life-size clay
When the statues were discovered in 1974, many had been smashed and archaeologists and restorers spent months, or even years, on each figure, finding the right places for all the pieces and sticking them back together.
New technology is allowing these figures to be restored more accurately. When the first statues were unearthed, exposure to air caused the paint to flake off immediately. Today restorers are able to work quickly to preserve any color pigments, revealing that the statues were originally painted in bright colours.
For a fun activity, take a photo or illustration of a terracotta statue and cut it up into pieces. Have your students line the pieces up together to recreate the image. For a harder challenge, cut up two images in different ways, mix up the pieces, and have your students repair both images. Putting the images back together gives students an insight into what it must be like to restore these ancient statues. It's harder than it looks!
Our Terracotta Warriors resource includes a puzzle of a terracotta soldier's face.
