For the first time in nearly a decade, an exhibit of the famed clay soldiers sculpted more than 2,000 years ago to guard Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s tomb is visiting the U.S., and it started with the Santa Ana museum. An exhibition of the historic pieces last visited Orange County in 2011.
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)
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 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)
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)
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)
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)
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 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)
Five of the life-sized warriors have been the showpiece of the museum’s “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century” exhibit, which also includes more than 100 Chinese artifacts, many more than a thousand years older than the warriors.
Some of the material had only been discovered in the last few years and is just starting to be analyzed.
“This exhibition has surpassed every goal we set,” Bowers President Sean O’Harrow said in a statement. “The public’s response has been extraordinary. Visitors were captivated not only by the iconic warriors, but also by the newly uncovered artifacts that shed light on China’s earliest civilizations.”
The Bowers also organized a series of lectures and special programs in conjunction with the warriors’ visit, the last of which is on Sunday, closing day, with Eugene Y. Wang, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller professor of Asian art at Harvard University, discussing “The First Emperor’s Chariots – Where Are They Going?” Qin was the first emperor of China and died in 221 B.C.
The exhibition next travels to the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
***If you go
When: The Bowers Museum exhibit is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through Sunday
Where: The museum is at the corner of 20th and Main streets in Santa Ana
Cost: Admission to the Terracotta Warriors exhibit is $29 for adults, and there are various discounts for older adults, children and Santa Ana residents
