Were the Terracotta Army soldiers painted? Yes — and the color starts dying about fifteen seconds after they are dug up.

• ✓National Geographic — Terra-cotta warriors
• ✓TUM — Conservators preserve the paint layers of the Terracotta Army
• ✓Chemistry World — Raiders of the lost pigments
• ✓ECNS — Conservators struggle to preserve the original colors
• ✓http://www.xinhuanet.com//english/2017-09/15/c_136612847.htm

Dig up a Terracotta warrior and you can destroy the very color you're trying to uncover. The paint starts curling about fifteen seconds after the air hits it. These soldiers were originally painted in bright reds, greens and blues, even purple. The problem sits underneath the paint. A thin layer of ancient lacquer. Buried in damp soil it holds moisture. In dry air it shrinks and curls, pulling the paint off with it. Most of the army lost its color that way. So how do you dig up a soldier without stripping it? The colors we know come from traces left on broken fragments. Even a rare purple survived in flecks. Researchers in China and Germany found a treatment. Spray the figure as it comes out of the ground with PEG, a wax-like polymer that replaces the water in the lacquer, so it stops shrinking as it dries. But there's a catch. The treatment can make the figures darker than they originally were. You can preserve more of the ancient paint, but change how it looks. Would you accept darker colors if it meant saving the original paint? Let me know in the comments and follow for more interesting facts.