Terracotta Army in the context of "Xi'an"

Funerary art is any work of art forming, or placed in, a repository for the remains of the dead. The term encompasses a wide variety of forms, including cenotaphs ("empty tombs"), tomb-like monuments which do not contain human remains, and communal memorials to the dead, such as war memorials, which may or may not contain remains, and a range of prehistoric megalithic constructs. Funerary art may serve many cultural functions. It can play a role in burial rites, serve as an article for use by the dead in the afterlife, and celebrate the life and accomplishments of the dead, whether as part of kinship-centred practices of ancestor veneration or as a publicly directed dynastic display. It can also function as a reminder of the mortality of humankind, as an expression of cultural values and roles, and help to propitiate the spirits of the dead, maintaining their benevolence and preventing their unwelcome intrusion into the lives of the living.

The deposit of objects with an apparent aesthetic intention is found in almost all cultures – Hindu culture, which has little, is a notable exception. Many of the best-known artistic creations of past cultures – from the Egyptian pyramids and the Tutankhamun treasure, to the Terracotta Army surrounding the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Sutton Hoo ship burial and the Taj Mahal – are tombs or objects found in and around them. In most instances, specialized funeral art was produced for the powerful and wealthy, although the burials of ordinary people might include simple monuments and grave goods, usually from their possessions.

Lintong District (Chinese: 临潼区; pinyin: Líntóng Qū), formerly Lintong County, is one of 11 urban districts of the prefecture-level city of Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, Northwest China. The district was approved to establish from the former Lintong County (临潼县) by the Chinese State Council on June 25, 1997. The Terracotta Army and the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor was discovered in March 1974 near this district. The district borders the prefecture-level cities of Xianyang to the northwest and Weinan to the east, Gaoling County to the northeast, Baqiao District to the southeast, Lianhu and Xincheng Districts to the south, and Chang'an District to the southwest.

Artifacts from the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor, can be viewed at the Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum (秦始皇帝陵博物院) in Lintong District.

The Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang (Chinese: 秦始皇陵; pinyin: Qínshǐhuáng Líng) is a tomb complex constructed for Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of the Chinese Qin dynasty. It is located in modern-day Lintong District in Xi'an, Shaanxi. It was constructed over 38 years from 246 to 208 BC, and is situated underneath a 76-metre-tall (249 ft) tomb mound shaped like a truncated pyramid. The layout of the mausoleum is modeled on the layout of Xianyang, the capital of the Qin dynasty, which was divided into inner and outer cities. The circumference of the inner city is 2.5 km (1.6 mi) and the outer is 6.3 km (3.9 mi). The tomb is located in the southwest of the inner city and faces east. The main tomb chamber housing the coffin and burial artifacts is the core of the architectural complex of the mausoleum.

The tomb itself has not yet been excavated. Archaeological explorations currently concentrate on various sites of the extensive necropolis surrounding the tomb, including the Terracotta Army to the east of the tomb mound. The Terracotta Army served as a garrison to the mausoleum and has yet to be completely excavated.

Lamellar armour is a type of body armour made from small rectangular plates (scales or lamellae) of iron, steel, leather (rawhide), bone, or bronze laced into horizontal rows. Lamellar armour was used over a wide range of time periods in Central Asia, Eastern Asia (especially in China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, and Tibet), Western Asia, and Eastern Europe. The earliest evidence for lamellar armour comes from sculpted artwork of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–609 BC) in the Near East.

Lamellar armour should not be confused with laminar armour, a related form of plate armour which is made from horizontal overlapping rows or bands of solid armour plates (called lames) rather than scales. By comparison, lamellar armour is made from individual armour scales which are laced together to form a strip of armour which appears to be solid but is not.

Lute (from Latin lutum 'mud, clay etc.') was a substance used to seal and affix apparatus employed in chemistry and alchemy, and to protect component vessels against heat damage by fire; it was also used to line furnaces. Lutation was thus the act of "cementing vessels with lute".

In pottery, luting is a technique for joining pieces of unfired leather-hard clay together, using a wet clay slip or slurry as adhesive. The complete object is then fired. Large objects are often built up in this way, for example the figures of the Terracotta Army in ancient China. The edges being joined might be scored or cross-hatched to promote adhesion, but clay and water are the only materials used.