As orientally chaotic Xian may have been, as rundown its old airport that has now been replaced by a modern one, as pervasive its fogs that made road travel difficult, the place had a lively spirit and strange attractiveness that may well reach back to its origins long before the beginning of the Chinese empire at the time of Qin Shihuangdi. He dubbed himself the First Emperor of China, who left behind a dark and violent image in the minds of people. Xian has, by default, become the center associated with Qin Shihuangdi, because the capital of the Qin state was actually a smaller city, Xianyang.

Before 1974 Xian (or Xi'an) was generally known as the starting point of the Silk and Spice Road that led westward beyond the desert, the mountains, and into India. In some older stories it is also called Chang'an, although that name has long been in disuse. Eventually the Silk Road reached into the Middle East, even to the Roman Empire, and so to the edge of Europe. After 1974 Xian's significance changed. It began when a peasant, Yang Zhifa, while digging a well in the eastern suburb of Xian, stumbled across archaeological remnants of some terracotta figures buried deep below the surface near the known Mausoleum of The First Emperor. Little did the farmer then realize to what this find would lead over the years.

We came to Xian in 1990, when few western tourists found there way there. My husband and I had come as part of lecture and teaching assignments that allowed us to travel across China—albeit with a guide. Consequently the now famous Pit No.1, where the first terracotta soldiers were excavated, was on the agenda. The experience of walking into this great hall and be confronted by this live-sized army of statues had an overwhelming effect. Devoid of non-Chinese visitors, the hall was there for us to explore. We even had access to the area where archeologists were digging for ever more figures.

It amazed us that the First Emperor's army already fought with cross bows equipped with a cocking device, something western civilization would not know about until centuries later. A splendid example, although recreated, is part of the ROM display. Another discovery were the life-sized coaches that had been buried at the site. These were copies of those in which Qin Shihuangdi traveled throughout his empire, one even had a central stove to allow him to journey in cold weather. What an eye-opener. Most of all, we had a chance to admire not only the craft, but the artistic merit of the terracotta army and other artifacts found on the site.

The same thing can be said of The Warrior Emperor and China's Terracotta Army at the ROM. It is a well-laid out display that slowly introduces the visitor to the Qin empire by taking the visitor back to before Qin Shihuangdi's time. The museum' s senior curator in the World Culture department, Chen Shen, must have had music on his mind when he began to design this exhibit, for it unfolds like an orchestral work in three movements, starting with an allegro movement that features finds from prior to the rise of the First Emperor, then continues to the second, an andante movement that builds to a crescendo with the life-sized terra cotta statues that have come to the ROM. They are supported by filmed images of the interior of Pit No. 1 and its many soldiers. This curatorial composition ends with a gentle, yet powerful adagio of smaller terra cotta figures from the Han Dynasty. This dynastic period replaced the Qin, and brought around 200 years of relative peace to China.

Just who was Qin Shihuangdi? He was given the name Zheng when he was born in 259 BC to King Zhuang Xiang of Qin, and the concubine, Zhao Ji. Zheng came to the throne at age 13 upon his father's death. His mother and Lu Buwei, a wealthy merchant (whose concubine Zhao Ji originally had been) and supporter of the boy's father, acted for a time as his regents. Following a court scandal, Zhen, now 21, became sole ruler of his kingdom, one of seven competing states within early China. The capital of Qin was Xianyang, a city located west (or upstream as the people of Xian might say) from Xian. To mark the twin significance of the two cities, Xian's new airport has the double name Xi'an Xianyang International Airport.

It is believed that Zhen grew up in a harsh world, rule by a dictum credited to Shang Yang, his grandfather's chief minister, that all men are inherently evil and can only be ruled by fear. "In an orderly country punishments are numerous and rewards are rare," he is said to have written. Very little is known about the First Emperor's life. From some records historians have learned that he had more than 20 children, but there is nothing known of his wives or concubines. This includes the fact that nothing has been found about the mother of Er Shi, his second son and successor as the Second Emperor.

"He has the proboscis of a hornet and large all-seeing eyes. His chest is like that of a bird of prey and his voice like that of a jackal. He is merciless, with the heart of a tiger or a wolf," wrote Wei Liao, one of Qin Shihuangdi's advisors, before he fled the court.

Zheng, once he was fully in power of his throne in 238 BC, worked closely with his first minister, Li Si. They streamlined the state of Qin's administration, and introduced land reforms to create a sound agricultural base to feed the king's troops. They mobilized everyone in the kingdom to be productive with the aim to make Qin the 'superpower' in the area; they honed Qin's army into a ferocious instrument that managed  to vanquish the six other feudal states between 238 and 221 BC. These, combined with the Qin kingdom, became unified China (about a third of today's China).

Zheng became known as the Tiger of Qin, which is reflected in the tiger tally he used to control his generals. He gave them each a half tally. They had to obey orders only if accompanied by the other half. Zeng named himself The First (August) Emperor in 221 BC. 'We are the First Emperor, and our successors shall be known as the Second Emperor, Third Emperor, and so on, for endless generations,' he is said to have stated. This prediction never came to fruition. The Second Emperor was weak and dissolute and ruled only three years. He committed suicide, forced on him by the powerful eunuch, Zhao Gao, his former tutor. With Er Shi's passing and the subsequent overthrow of Er Shi's successor, who sat on the throne for only 46 days, the more benign period of the Han Dynasty began.

The First Emperor can be credited with creating standardized weights and measures, creating a single currency, and the most important aspect of all, a single pictorial script that could be read by all, despite speaking different languages or dialects. It is still the basis of today's pictorial Chinese script. On the distaff side, he is guilty of ordering the burning of all books. The works by great philosophers from earlier periods presented to him weapons that might undermine his authority. Scholars, who disobeyed him, were branded and sent to work on the construction of the Great Wall, or if they proved completely recalcitrant, were buried alive. Chinese folklore has it that during Qin Shihuangdi's time one man died for every meter of the Great Wall, something that can well be believed, considering the physical hardships these workers must have endured.

In his later years, suffering from paranoia and an obsession with death, he sought to gain immortality in the next world. He ordered the building of his tomb as a replica of his many palaces. This underground edifice was to be guarded by the huge terracotta army, civil officials, acrobats, strongmen and musicians, animals and countless artifacts. When he died while on a trip to the eastern shore of his empire, Li Si kept his death secret, forged an edict that ordered the liberal crown prince, Fu Su to commit suicide, and with a forged will installed Hu Hai, known during his three-year rule as Er Shi.

This is very roughly the history behind Qin Shihuangdi, the First Emperor of China, who left as his greatest visible legacy the terracotta figures and all the artifacts still being unearthed in the area surrounding his tomb on the outer reaches of Xian. What is so important about the story of the First Emperor is that only farmer Yang's chance discovery gave shape to  Qin Shihuangdi, far more than a few existing written documents written after his death and legends carried from generation to generation.

The ROM exhibit displays 250 artifacts dating from about 600 years before Qin Shuiuangdi to give an overall view of what led to the era of the First Emperor. Included are also 10 life-sized terracotta sculptures, eight human and two horses. The human figures depict military and civic personnel. Some may be disappointed that out of the thousands of figures unearthed, only 10 have come to the ROM. It must be noted, however, that Chinese officials have placed a limit on the number of statues that can be sent to an institution outside China. The danger of damage to any of them is seen as taking a chance with loss to the national heritage of the country.

What amazes one about the figures is how each human face, regardless of station in life, has an individual look. There were no carbon copies, so to speak. These are not the result of molds, but of hand-made parts—terracotta sculptures, perhaps—put carefully together by the artisans, who made them. There is also a sense that a great, artistic mind was behind the creation not only of the statues but of the whole design of the various complexes. It takes imagination and understanding to create such a vast undertaking. Sadly, we will most likely never know who actually had the vision to follow through with the emperor's dictates to build the burial pits and their content. One thing visitors to this exhibit must keep in mind is that when the terracotta soldiers were created, they were fully colored, which must have been an even more spectacular sight that we, sadly, will never be able to see due to the elapse of time and erosion that comes with it.

Also on view in the show is a section of a wall painting from the emperor's palace, many gold objects, a bronze ritual vessel, and a painted tomb gate set. Astonishing to observe is a suit of stone-plaque armor, a stone-plaque helmet, and a life-sized bronze swan that also came from the First Emperor's tomb complex. It is a credit to the ROM that around 30 percent of the objects on show have never been seen outside China.

The first section of the exhibition is called The Rise of Qin. It contains some recently excavated figures that have never been shown in China, which tells us much of how the ROM has been successful in making this a unique show. There are also a number of early terracotta warriors found in other parts of today's China. Here visitors can view the wall painting from the Tiger of Qin's complex that is dominated by black, reportedly the First Emperor's favorite color. Next comes that section which contains the crescendo of the show. This is what visitors have come to see, namely The Terracotta Army, or at least those parts that have been shipped to the ROM. A film of the restaging of how Qin Shihuangdi's army may have held its formations and prepared for attack, in which uniformed actors fight with weapons fashioned after those found in the tombs, is included in this section as is a large-screen film of Pit 1 and its row upon row of soldiers.

The third section focuses on the Harmonious Han, which explores the political and social changes that followed the rise of the Han dynasty (206 BC to AD 221). The Han emperors followed the Qin burial practices, but their terracotta figures did not reach either the size or the awe-inspiring impact and realistic imagery of that produced by the artisans of Qin Shihuangdi. This may, perhaps, be laid at Er Shi's feet, because he ordered all of his father's childless concubines and all the workers who knew the secret of the tomb and its artifacts to be buried alive with Qin Shihuangdi. He thereby ensure that knowledge was not passed on to the next generation of artisans. Still, there is a definite beauty to the Han statues that cannot be discounted. The hold a space all of their own in ones mind.

It is, of course, not unique in history that men concerned with maintaining power destroy books and art. Still, the destruction of early books and the eradication of artisans by the Qin rulers may be the first known such events anywhere. They mark the Qin era as much as all the other achievements and failures that have helped to form many aspects of China' s past and present.

Interestingly, the Han figures in this exhibition as opposed to the Qin's retain much of their original color despite the delicacy of the design of these statues. These include court ladies and an assortment of farm animals in addition to soldiers. From these we can see how their imagery has been carried forward into Chinese traditions still reflected in life in today's much larger China. Perhaps, what strikes one most is that it is quite clear how one dynasty built upon another, even in this early stage of Chinese history.