China 2012: The terracotta army - pit #3

Excerpt from the travelchinaguide.com website:
Walk 27 yards northwest from Pit 1 and visitors will arrive at Terra Cotta Warrior Pit No. 3. Covering an area of 622 square yards, it is actually a component of both Terracotta Warriors Pit 1 and Terracotta Warriors Pit 2. Built in the shape of the Chinese character "凹", Pit 3 measures 19.2 yards long from east to west, 23.4 yards wide from north to south and 15.7 feet deep.

Experts have pointed out that Pit 3 is the command center or headquarters for all the groups in the other two pits. The unearthed artifacts include 68 terracotta warriors, four horses and one chariot all arranged in a layout that is quite unique. There is a slopping passageway in the east and upon entering it, you will face a chariot and horse chamber where there is a single war chariot. This chariot and horse chamber has two corridors on the two sides. A wing room is located to the west of the left corridor. To the west of the right corridor, there are antehall and back room. All the 68 warrior figures stand orderly along the two sides of the passageways.

What's even more exciting is that va rious kinds of bronze weaponry as well as gold, stone and bronze decorations were also discovered in the pit. Most of weapons used in actual combat such as bronze spears, bronze swords, crossbows and arrowheads are well preserved.

But one thing that puzzles experts very much is that there is no terra cotta warrior of the commander-in-chief. Actually, the terra cotta warriors include fully armored foot soldiers, cavalry, chariot soldiers and crossbowmen as mentioned before. Some experts maintain that a general would take the place of the commander-in-chief in the Qin wars. Some believe that the Emperor Qin Shi Huang himself is the commander-in-chief, and his image can not be replicated in the pit in order to defend the emperor's dignity and absolute authority. But both sayings are conjecture, and experts are doing their best to discover the true reason.

another excerpt:


Why many of the Qin Terracotta Warriors unearthed in the Pit 3 do not have heads?

Visitors to Pit 3 may wonder why many of the Qin Terracotta Warriors do not have heads. It is believed that these warriors did have heads when they were originally produced. Archaeologists speculated that at some point vandals broke into this pit and deliberately destroyed the warriors. During the archaeological excavation of the pits, a villager revealed that he dig out half of a warrior's head in the southern wall of what is now the Qin Terracotta Warriors Museum. He returned the head and archaeologists searched across the various body pieces for a match. Finally, they matched it to a warrior body discovered in the Pit 3. This is one example of how many of the heads have been lost outside of the pit.Although Pit 3 is smaller than both Pit 1 and Pit 2, archaeologists spent all of 1977 finishing the excavation of this pit. Because the contents of Pit 3 were not burned like those in the other pits, the terracotta warriors unearthed in this pit are more splendid than those found in the other two pits.