Think about, said Seán O’Harrow, the attention craftsmen put into the famed Terracotta Warriors that they carved a realistic shoe sole on a statue of a kneeling archer, when they had thousands of the clay soldiers to prepare for guarding Qin Shi Huang’s tomb, the first emperor of China in 221 B.C., in his afterlife.
And at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, of which O’Harrow is the president and CEO, visitors will be able to examine their detailed work up close, not something they could easily do, he added, if they visited the Chinese museums where the clay warriors stand in formation in the pits in which they were unearthed starting 50 years ago.
O’Harrow said he has been to the museums in China and seen the warriors where they are staged by the thousands in their pits.
Chinese terracotta warriors on display at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, on Friday, May 23, 2025. The new exhibit, “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century!” explores China’s early history through recent archaeological finds from Shaanxi Province. The museum display goes from Shimao around 2300 BCE—among the earliest walled cities in China—to the Shang and Zhou eras, ending with the Terracotta Warriors commissioned by the Qin emperor and completed after his death in 210 BCE. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Chinese terracotta warriors on display at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, on Friday, May 23, 2025. The new exhibit, “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century!” explores China’s early history through recent archaeological finds from Shaanxi Province. The museum display goes from Shimao around 2300 BCE—among the earliest walled cities in China—to the Shang and Zhou eras, ending with the Terracotta Warriors commissioned by the Qin emperor and completed after his death in 210 BCE. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Bowers Museum Chief Curator Tianlong Jiao, right, and Li Gang, Director of the Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s Mausoleum Museum, show off the multimedia part of their new terracotta warrior exhibit on display at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, on Friday, May 23, 2025. They explained there is a hole on his index finger and people believe this figure was spinning a plate socketed with a peg. They said the art of plate spinning is still practiced in China today. The new exhibit, “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century!” explores China’s early history through recent archaeological finds from Shaanxi Province. The museum display goes from Shimao around 2300 BCE—among the earliest walled cities in China—to the Shang and Zhou eras, ending with the Terracotta Warriors commissioned by the Qin emperor and completed after his death in 210 BCE. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Detail of a chariot from the ‘Terracotta Army’. Tomb of Shi Huangdi, 259-210 BCE, Shaanxi Province, China, on display at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, on Friday, May 23, 2025. The new exhibit, “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century!” explores China’s early history through recent archaeological finds from Shaanxi Province. The museum display goes from Shimao around 2300 BCE—among the earliest walled cities in China—to the Shang and Zhou eras, ending with the Terracotta Warriors commissioned by the Qin emperor and completed after his death in 210 BCE. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Detail of a chariot from the ‘Terracotta Army’. Tomb of Shi Huangdi, 259-210 BCE, Shaanxi Province, China, on display at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, on Friday, May 23, 2025. The new exhibit, “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century!” explores China’s early history through recent archaeological finds from Shaanxi Province. The museum display goes from Shimao around 2300 BCE—among the earliest walled cities in China—to the Shang and Zhou eras, ending with the Terracotta Warriors commissioned by the Qin emperor and completed after his death in 210 BCE. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
A chariot from the ‘Terracotta Army’. Tomb of Shi Huangdi, 259-210 BCE, Shaanxi Province, China, on display at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, on Friday, May 23, 2025. The new exhibit, “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century!” explores China’s early history through recent archaeological finds from Shaanxi Province. The museum display goes from Shimao around 2300 BCE—among the earliest walled cities in China—to the Shang and Zhou eras, ending with the Terracotta Warriors commissioned by the Qin emperor and completed after his death in 210 BCE. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Chinese terracotta warriors include detail on the bottom of their shoes on display at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, on Friday, May 23, 2025. The new exhibit, “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century!” explores China’s early history through recent archaeological finds from Shaanxi Province. The museum display goes from Shimao around 2300 BCE—among the earliest walled cities in China—to the Shang and Zhou eras, ending with the Terracotta Warriors commissioned by the Qin emperor and completed after his death in 210 BCE. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Visitors to a media preview examine a stone from 2300-1800 BCE that was excavated from Shimao, China in 2018 while on display at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, on Friday, May 23, 2025. The new exhibit, “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century!” explores China’s early history through recent archaeological finds from Shaanxi Province. The museum display goes from Shimao around 2300 BCE—among the earliest walled cities in China—to the Shang and Zhou eras, ending with the Terracotta Warriors commissioned by the Qin emperor and completed after his death in 210 BCE. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Chinese terracotta warriors on display at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, on Friday, May 23, 2025. The new exhibit, “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century!” explores China’s early history through recent archaeological finds from Shaanxi Province. The museum display goes from Shimao around 2300 BCE—among the earliest walled cities in China—to the Shang and Zhou eras, ending with the Terracotta Warriors commissioned by the Qin emperor and completed after his death in 210 BCE. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Chinese terracotta warriors on display at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, on Friday, May 23, 2025. The new exhibit, “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century!” explores China’s early history through recent archaeological finds from Shaanxi Province. The museum display goes from Shimao around 2300 BCE—among the earliest walled cities in China—to the Shang and Zhou eras, ending with the Terracotta Warriors commissioned by the Qin emperor and completed after his death in 210 BCE. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Chinese terracotta warriors on display at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, on Friday, May 23, 2025. The new exhibit, “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century!” explores China’s early history through recent archaeological finds from Shaanxi Province. The museum display goes from Shimao around 2300 BCE—among the earliest walled cities in China—to the Shang and Zhou eras, ending with the Terracotta Warriors commissioned by the Qin emperor and completed after his death in 210 BCE. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Visitors to a media preview examine Chinese terracotta warriors on display at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, on Friday, May 23, 2025. The new exhibit, “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century!” explores China’s early history through recent archaeological finds from Shaanxi Province. The museum display goes from Shimao around 2300 BCE—among the earliest walled cities in China—to the Shang and Zhou eras, ending with the Terracotta Warriors commissioned by the Qin emperor and completed after his death in 210 BCE. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Bowers Museum Chairwoman Anne Shih takes a picture with a man in a terracotta warrior costume in Santa Ana, CA, on Friday, May 23, 2025. The museum’s new exhibit, “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century!” explores China’s early history through recent archaeological finds from Shaanxi Province. The museum display goes from Shimao around 2300 BCE—among the earliest walled cities in China—to the Shang and Zhou eras, ending with the Terracotta Warriors commissioned by the Qin emperor and completed after his death in 210 BCE. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Bowers Museum Chief Curator Tianlong Jiao, left, and Li Gang, Director of the Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s Mausoleum Museum, talk about the terracotta figure of an entertainer, left, on display at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, on Friday, May 23, 2025. They explained there is a hole on his index finger and people believe this figure was spinning a plate socketed with a peg. They said the art of plate spinning is still practiced in China today. The new exhibit, “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century!” explores China’s early history through recent archaeological finds from Shaanxi Province. The museum display goes from Shimao around 2300 BCE—among the earliest walled cities in China—to the Shang and Zhou eras, ending with the Terracotta Warriors commissioned by the Qin emperor and completed after his death in 210 BCE. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Bowers Museum Chief Curator Tianlong Jiao shows off a section their new terracotta warrior exhibit that explains the excavation process on display at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, on Friday, May 23, 2025. The new exhibit, “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century!” explores China’s early history through recent archaeological finds from Shaanxi Province. The museum display goes from Shimao around 2300 BCE—among the earliest walled cities in China—to the Shang and Zhou eras, ending with the Terracotta Warriors commissioned by the Qin emperor and completed after his death in 210 BCE. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
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Chinese terracotta warriors on display at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, CA, on Friday, May 23, 2025. The new exhibit, “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century!” explores China’s early history through recent archaeological finds from Shaanxi Province. The museum display goes from Shimao around 2300 BCE—among the earliest walled cities in China—to the Shang and Zhou eras, ending with the Terracotta Warriors commissioned by the Qin emperor and completed after his death in 210 BCE. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
“It is incredibly impressive because you are looking at the original location and the scale,” he said. “But what you are not able to do is to get very close to them because of the nature of the fact that they are still in the pits. You are looking down into the pits, where you don’t get the appreciation of the detail.”
At the Bowers, the warriors are in glass cases that are easily approached.
“You can see all the incredible detail,” O’Harrow said. “These sculptures are as realistic as they could make them. When you look really closely at the detail, you can see the piping on the soles of the shoe or the strands of hair on the head.
“To think that they created lifelike sculptures in the thousands to portray individual soldiers is completely mind-boggling,” he added.
The Bowers’ Chief Curator Tianlong Jiao made three visits to China to choose the pieces for the museum’s show, “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century.”
Along with the clay warriors, the exhibit features more than 100 artifacts, from the first known gold earring in China — “Even today if you wear it, it’s still fashionable,” Jiao said of the 3,200-year-old piece during a tour Friday — to the earliest known sculpture of a horse in China. “That is definitely a national treasure,” he added.
“This is an exhibition put together with material from a number of museums,” O’Harrow said. (There are multiple museums in China, located at the pits where the clay soldiers were dug up.) “It’s not something that was prepackaged.”
Jiao picked pieces to tell a bigger story the Bowers is looking to share with local audiences, O’Harrow said. “A really long history. The whole story we are telling is really a prequel to the Chinese Empire, so we are talking about the kingdoms that happened 1,500 years before and how they led up to the creation of the first empire. So the Terracotta Warriors are the finale to the story.”
Some of the material is newly discovered in the last few years and is just starting to be analyzed, including newly unearthed terracotta figures that aren’t warriors but instead represent the entertainers of the kingdom, who also served an important role, said Li Gang, director of the Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s Mausoleum Museum.
“I hope by presenting all this new discovery, people will have an understanding of the depths of Asia and China,” Jiao said, adding later, “The museum’s mission is very clear, we want to bring the best to California, the best of culture.”
And the museum is mixing in modern technology to tell that ancient story, creating interactive elements including an immersive video presentation and the opportunity to use a touch screen to paint your own warrior that you can email to yourself. Though few have their original paint preserved, each of the thousands of warrior sculptures had its own paint scheme and features.
The museum will increase capacity and probably hours to make sure it can accommodate the expected interest in the exhibit, O’Harrow said.
“We’ve got a number of lectures planned; we are bringing in experts from around the world,” he added, including for an academic symposium on June 21.
Pieces of the Terracotta Warriors collection haven’t been circulated in the United States in about eight years, “so I think a lot of the audience for this exhibition will be new,” O’Harrow said.
After its closing in October, the exhibition goes to Houston next. But the Chinese government will only allow the clay warriors out of the country for a year, so after that stop, they will return home.
“This material hasn’t been seen before in the United States, and a lot of it hasn’t really been seen by anyone because it is all new stuff,” O’Harrow said. “So that is pretty incredible and unusual.”