Xin says the clay figurines offer references for studies into the Sixteen Kingdoms period, but they also compose the most confusing part. For example, while other unearthed artifacts indicate the tomb was dug during the Former Qin because they look similar to those in previously found tombs of that kingdom, some horse figurines don't have stirrups while artifacts from other contemporaneous tombs do. Academics consider the earliest use of stirrups in warfare to have taken place in the Sixteen Kingdoms period. It gradually expanded westward and changed military history.

Xin says he expects comparative studies to give new ideas tracing its origins and development.

Pottery discovered at the tombs, such as green-glazed pots, show typical styles from southeastern China at the time, and the aesthetics of Chang'an are exhibited by hair buns.

"These artifacts strongly showcase their time," Zhu Yanshi, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, tells China Daily.

"That is a time when the north and south communicated in depth, and different cultures mixed."

Zhu says horse-riding nomadic people during the Sixteen Kingdoms period tried to establish their own kingdoms in central China and preferred to set their capitals in Chang'an and Luoyang. Both were metropolises during the Han (202 BC-220 AD) and Tang (618-907) dynasties.