Zhao Kangmin: the First Person to Discover the Terracotta Warriors

The Terracotta Warriors have been hailed as the greatest archaeological discovery of the 21st century. But did you know? It was accidentally discovered by a local farmer over forty years ago while drilling a well. At that time, people did not know the value of these relics, and they were left unattended for 28 days. Fortunately, a staff member of Lintong County Culture Museum, Zhao Kangmin, was keenly aware that these might be cultural relics. He collected the artifacts in time and put them in centralized storage. He was the first person to restore the first terracotta warriors and horses, and the first person to make the 8,000 terracotta warriors and horses, which had been silent for a thousand years, finally shine in the world.

Zhao Kangmin, a native of Guanshan, Yanliang, Shaanxi Province, born in 1936, is a research curator and former director of the Lintong District Museum. At the time of confirming and restoring the Terracotta Warriors, he was a cultural relics cadre of the Cultural Museum of Lintong County. In the 1960s and 1970s, through years of investigation and research on the distribution of cultural relics in Lintong, Zhao Kangmin accumulated rich basic knowledge and gradually became a connoisseur of cultural relics and archaeology in Lintong, becoming a famous cultural relics expert in a hundred miles around the county.

In 1974, there was a severe drought in Lintong. One day, Zhao Kangmin received a report from Fang Shumin, a member of the present Agricultural Water Conservancy Production Team of Lintong District, Xi’an City. He said that when he went down to the village to check the well-drilling work, he found that there were pottery pieces in the soil from the well drilled by the villagers of Xi Yang Village, and these pieces might be cultural relics. Upon hearing this, Zhao Kangmin immediately put down the work at hand and rushed to the scene.

Zhao Kangmin was stunned by the scene at the well-drilling site – the well-drilling site at the foot of Mount Li, where the heads, bodies, limbs and fragments of pottery people were visible everywhere in the new soil, as well as many gray and black whole bricks, and occasionally some copper arrowheads could be found.

It is understood that the local villagers have been drilling wells for more than a month. For these unintentional digging out of the pottery man (folk called “tile god master”), some people think that this is the culprit of the drought, it drank the underground water, the village elders are even busy burning incense and kowtowing; some villagers feel that “tile god master” face hideous, hanging it on the persimmon tree by the wheat field to scare sparrows; some naughty children will “tile god master” limbs broke off. Some villagers think that the “Master Tile God” has a hideous face and hang it on the persimmon tree by the wheat field to scare the sparrows; some naughty children use the broken limbs of the “Master Tile God” as a toy to play with.

Seeing this, Zhao Kangmin immediately went down to the bottom of the well, to distinguish the scene, and carefully observe the structure of the soil layer, the more complete pottery pieces for in-depth analysis. Thinking of the collection of kneeling figurines in the museum, intuition told him: this is a relic of the Qin Dynasty, which is an important cultural relic related to the tomb of Qin Shi Huang.

“Comrades, although the drought is urgent, this well can not be dug at present.” Zhao Kangmin immediately stood on a high mound of earth and said to the people in a high voice, “These ’tile gods’ are precious, it may be the burial goods of Qin Shi Huang, let’s find out its origin first.”

Zhao Kangmin asked the villagers to collect the pottery pieces and loaded a whole 3 rack car to send back to the museum. And paid them 30 yuan, but at that time the villagers’ daily wage was only 10 cents. Zhao Kangmin also found people to sift the new clay finely, sifting all the debris in a net. All collected and shipped back to the museum to be pieced together and glued.

At the same time, Zhao Kangmin organized personnel to clean up the site of the well drilling to find more clues. Zhao Kangmin also learned that some of the unearthed copper arrowheads had been sold to a scrapyard in Sanyuan County. Zhao Kangmin was so angry and he immediately redeemed all 200 copper arrowheads and 2 copper crossbow machines on terms higher than the selling price.

While Zhao Kangmin was carefully restoring thousands of pottery pieces, a reporter from the Xinhua News Agency, who had returned to his hometown to visit his relatives, came to the museum. He was so shocked by the pottery pieces that Zhao Kangmin had restored that he immediately interviewed Zhao Kangmin. Soon published in the People’s Daily “situation compilation” “Qin Shihuang Mausoleum unearthed a group of Qin Dynasty warrior terracotta”. State Council leaders immediately made important instructions, requiring the cultural relics department and the local party committee and government to quickly take measures to properly protect cultural relics. The State Administration of Cultural Heritage immediately sent experts to Shaanxi to inspect the site and decided to organize relevant parties to excavate.

On July 15, 1974, the Terracotta Army archaeological team was officially stationed at the archaeological site in Xiyangcun, and five people, including Zhao Kangmin and Yuan Zhongyi, had the honor of being the first generation of archaeologists to unravel the mystery of the burial pits of the Qin tombs. From this moment on, the curtain was raised to unveil the mystery of the Terracotta Warriors, and the magnificent Qin dynasty army array is displayed in front of the world today.

The discovery of the Terracotta Warriors seems accidental, but in fact, its discovery has long been inevitable. The burial depth of the burial pits is only 5 meters, which can be easily discovered by later generations. Archaeologists have discovered more than 20 tombs, three ancient wells and one large furrow pit since the Han Dynasty. This indicates that more than 30 people in history had the opportunity to see the Terracotta Warriors, but missed it due to the lack of awareness of its preciousness.

As a cultural relics worker, it is a gift from the god of luck, but at the same time, it is also the result of Zhao Kangmin’s decades-long love for cultural relics conservation and his dedication to the development of the cultural and museum industry in his hometown of Lintong.

Zhao Kangmin has devoted his life to the cultural and archaeological career of Lintong. For more than 40 years, he has participated in the discovery, presided over and excavated the Pit No. 1 of the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Qin, the site of the Palace of the First Emperor of Qin and the Stable Pit of the Mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin. He has authored and published several monographs.

At 9:30 p.m. on May 16, 2018, Kangmin Zhao passed away at the age of 82 due to illness.