The Terracotta was discovered in 1974 by a local farmer in Shaanxi Province.
In March 1974, a farmer tried to dig a well 1.5 kilometers to the east of the Tomb of Qin Shihuang. He did not find any water, but lots of fragments of terracotta warriors. He realized there must be something special under earth, so he reported this to the local government. However, the local government just asked him to dig a well anywhere else and tried to reassemble these fragments.
In June 1974, a journalist of Xinhua News Agency saw these terracotta warriors and reported this to the central government in Beijing. After researching the area where these terracotta warriors were unearthed, the central government were sure there were much priceless relics in that area, so they sent lots of archeologists to unearth more ruins of Terracotta Army. Some of them are preserved very well.