Terracotta Army
In 246 b.c.e., when the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang was a boy, the construction of a funeral palace was begun. About 700,000 craftsmen worked on constructing a tomb for him. Surrounding this, they made full-size terracotta statues of 8,000 soldiers and 670 horses, including 130 chariots. These are known as the Terracotta Army.
They were all buried around 210 b.c.e. when the emperor died at age 49, supposedly to protect him in the afterlife. These stamps show images of some of the terracotta soldiers. About a hundred years after the tomb was hidden, a historian wrote about it, leaving the only record of its existence. It’s location was unknown.
In 1974, some farmers were digging a hole for a well when they discovered the soldiers. Many of the statues and other artifacts have since been excavated, but they’ve mostly been left in place. The tomb is still unsealed. The entire complex, or necropolis is believed to span nearly a hundred square kilometers underground.
Note
The top two rows of stamps came from a sturdy brochure or booklet that’s about four inches tall by six inches wide. It contains a dozen pages of images and text explaining the terracotta soldiers. There are four of each of these six stamps, for a total of twenty-four stamps. It was difficult for me to remove these stamps from their booklet: it seemed so nice as they were.
The bottom two stamps, the ones with the green border came from a sheet of stamps. I bought those as singles.
Contains 8 spots: own 8 – 8 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Jun 9, 2025
Stamp Details
The table below lists information about the stamps shown on this page of Lighthouse’s stamp album. For more details about a particular stamp, click on its description. That will take you to the related web page of Colnect.
spot |
own |
catalog |
subject |
description |
comment |
Terracotta Army
✓ |
316c |
0.10 (nov 1997) |
|||
✓ |
316a |
0.10 (nov 1997) |
|||
✓ |
316e |
0.10 (nov 1997) |
|||
✓ |
316b |
0.10 (nov 1997) |
|||
✓ |
316d |
0.10 (nov 1997) |
|||
✓ |
316f |
0.10 (nov 1997) |
|||
✓ |
314 |
0.45 (nov 1997) |
|||
✓ |
315 |
0.70 (nov 1997) |
Footnotes
Spot refers to the postion of the stamp on the album page (e.g., 3.2 indicates row 3, position 2).
Amt. is an abbreviation for the face amount of the stamp.
Own indicates the stamp status: ✓ for unused; ✗ for used or canceled; ⭑ signifies I ordered one; ; ✨ indicates it was bought recently; ✠ means an auction bid is pending; and ◎ is used, and it costs too much for unused.
To search by catalog number, go to the search box and enter it in the catalog number box. However, it’s a bit broken; I need to fix it.
No Covers Found.