Our last stop in China was Xian, home of the famous terra cotta soldiers. In 1974, four farmers were digging in their field when one of them struck something strange with his hoe. He dug up a pottery shard and immediately knew he had found something very wonderful. This was the beginning of the excavation of a vast army of life-sized terra cotta soldiers who had been buried underground for more than 2,000 years.
In the year 206 BC (or thereabouts), the Emperor Qin, in preparation for his eventual death, had thousands of craftsmen construct out of clay an army of soldiers who would be buried with him in his tomb to protect him in the after-life against enemies and marauders. It is said that 700,000 workers lost their lives building the tomb with all of its accompanying treasures and the clay army. Then, several years after the emperor died and he and the soldiers had been buried, an insurgent group of disgruntled peasant farmers broke into the tomb, unearthed the soldiers, set fire to them and broke into pieces as many as they could. The tomb was never re-built and the Qin dynasty ended.
Fast forward 2,000 years and imagine the excitement of such a discovery. Archaeologists came from all over the world to examine the dig and to date about 7,000 soldiers have been unearthed and re-constructed. We were told that only one soldier, an archer, was discovered intact; the rest were all broken to a greater or lesser degree. But when you think that they had already been decimated by the peasant insurgency in 200-something BC and that they then had to endure the ravages of two millennia underground—it is incredible how well preserved they are. The soldiers are gray in color but when they were discovered they still had vestiges of their original paint. The paint disappeared when air hit it, before the very eyes of the excavators.
We knew this was going to be a highlight and we were in high anticipation when we finally reached the museum. Our new guide, Minnie, probably the best of the lot in terms of her ability to speak English, was very knowledgeable and gave us quite an education about the various emperors and especially the Emperor Qin. At the risk of getting my facts wrong, I won’t elaborate too much here, but this is another fascinating tale that would be well worth looking up if you are interested.
When you approach the museum, you immediately notice the scale of everything. Just like in Beijing, the buildings are huge and the walk from the parking lot to the front of the principal building is long and impressive. We all had seen pictures of the soldiers on the internet, but at the risk but being tiresomely repetitive I must say that once more we were not prepared for the reality of the spectacle in the “flesh.” When we finally entered the first building—Pit 1 they call it—we were all struck by how beautifully displayed the soldiers are and how easy it is to see them.
The building is a large dome-shaped edifice with walkways all around the perimeter, skylights in the ceiling, and lots of windows for natural light. The soldiers are literally in a “pit” lined up in military formation just as they would have been when they were buried with Mr. Qin. Of course, they all had to be painstakingly reconstructed from the shattered states they were in, and one can only wonder what a delicate and time-consuming process that was.
The soldiers are life-size--bigger actually, some as large as 6’5” which would have been larger than life-size at that time. They supposedly are all from the same mold, but all different in terms of facial expressions, hands and feet, poses and other distinguishing features. There are cavalry soldiers, infantry soldiers, officers and archers, plus magnificent horses who were pulling wooden chariots. The chariots of wood did not survive the 2,000 year entombment but the archaeologists have figured out what they looked like and in a few places there are impressions of chariot wheels in the excavated dirt.
We had told Minnie that we were very excited about seeing this particular wonder and she nodded and said yes, she had had one woman who, upon first sight of the soldiers, was overcome with emotion and burst into tears.
I wasn’t driven to tears, but I must say it is one of the most impressive things I’ve seen in my life. The dignity, the grandeur, the sheer number, even the mono-chromatic gray color all conspire to produce a definite visceral reaction. It’s an ohmygod of the first order.
We spent quite a while just walking the perimeter, reading the explanatory plaques and looking at the soldiers. About two-thirds of the pit is comprised of about 6,000 soldiers lined up as they would have been when buried, but the last one-third is the “reconstruction” area. This part shows how the soldiers are pieced together and has areas that show what the pit looked like when it was first unearthed and the soldiers were in fragments.
The next building is a museum which showcases individual soldiers that survived in the best condition, including the archer who was discovered intact. Although behind glass, here you could really get up close and personal and examine the soldiers from all sides. There was also a display of weaponry and precious artifacts that were found at the site along with the soldiers.
Afterwards, of course there is the obligatory “gift” shop, and I must say it is next to impossible to come away without buying a terra cotta reproduction. They had them in all sizes—full size (about $3,000 including shipping), half size, coffee table size, all the way down to small figurines. Mary and I both bought repros of the archer, hers a little bigger than mine, but mine was all I felt I could cram into my already overstuffed luggage.
But the best part was yet to come. Minnie had told us that of the four original discoverers, two have died and two are in their eighties and sometimes one or the other of them will show up at the gift shop to sign books. Well, this may have been a put-up job, but sho ‘nuf, there he was smoking a pipe, looking quite sullen and unfriendly, and with a big sign NO PHOTOS on his desk, signing books. Lurking on the periphery of the crowd was a Big Nose woman surreptitiously trying to take his picture; he saw her and this made him even more angry looking. He covered his face with his hat. But in spite of his rotten attitude, it was impossible to resist, and so Mary and I took the bait, bought a book each and after the old fart signed mine he practically threw it at me, with a scowl that was frightening to behold! Still, it’ll be a fun conversation piece and the signature is bona fide Chinese.
In the year 206 BC (or thereabouts), the Emperor Qin, in preparation for his eventual death, had thousands of craftsmen construct out of clay an army of soldiers who would be buried with him in his tomb to protect him in the after-life against enemies and marauders. It is said that 700,000 workers lost their lives building the tomb with all of its accompanying treasures and the clay army. Then, several years after the emperor died and he and the soldiers had been buried, an insurgent group of disgruntled peasant farmers broke into the tomb, unearthed the soldiers, set fire to them and broke into pieces as many as they could. The tomb was never re-built and the Qin dynasty ended.
Fast forward 2,000 years and imagine the excitement of such a discovery. Archaeologists came from all over the world to examine the dig and to date about 7,000 soldiers have been unearthed and re-constructed. We were told that only one soldier, an archer, was discovered intact; the rest were all broken to a greater or lesser degree. But when you think that they had already been decimated by the peasant insurgency in 200-something BC and that they then had to endure the ravages of two millennia underground—it is incredible how well preserved they are. The soldiers are gray in color but when they were discovered they still had vestiges of their original paint. The paint disappeared when air hit it, before the very eyes of the excavators.
We knew this was going to be a highlight and we were in high anticipation when we finally reached the museum. Our new guide, Minnie, probably the best of the lot in terms of her ability to speak English, was very knowledgeable and gave us quite an education about the various emperors and especially the Emperor Qin. At the risk of getting my facts wrong, I won’t elaborate too much here, but this is another fascinating tale that would be well worth looking up if you are interested.
When you approach the museum, you immediately notice the scale of everything. Just like in Beijing, the buildings are huge and the walk from the parking lot to the front of the principal building is long and impressive. We all had seen pictures of the soldiers on the internet, but at the risk but being tiresomely repetitive I must say that once more we were not prepared for the reality of the spectacle in the “flesh.” When we finally entered the first building—Pit 1 they call it—we were all struck by how beautifully displayed the soldiers are and how easy it is to see them.
The building is a large dome-shaped edifice with walkways all around the perimeter, skylights in the ceiling, and lots of windows for natural light. The soldiers are literally in a “pit” lined up in military formation just as they would have been when they were buried with Mr. Qin. Of course, they all had to be painstakingly reconstructed from the shattered states they were in, and one can only wonder what a delicate and time-consuming process that was.
The soldiers are life-size--bigger actually, some as large as 6’5” which would have been larger than life-size at that time. They supposedly are all from the same mold, but all different in terms of facial expressions, hands and feet, poses and other distinguishing features. There are cavalry soldiers, infantry soldiers, officers and archers, plus magnificent horses who were pulling wooden chariots. The chariots of wood did not survive the 2,000 year entombment but the archaeologists have figured out what they looked like and in a few places there are impressions of chariot wheels in the excavated dirt.
We had told Minnie that we were very excited about seeing this particular wonder and she nodded and said yes, she had had one woman who, upon first sight of the soldiers, was overcome with emotion and burst into tears.
I wasn’t driven to tears, but I must say it is one of the most impressive things I’ve seen in my life. The dignity, the grandeur, the sheer number, even the mono-chromatic gray color all conspire to produce a definite visceral reaction. It’s an ohmygod of the first order.
We spent quite a while just walking the perimeter, reading the explanatory plaques and looking at the soldiers. About two-thirds of the pit is comprised of about 6,000 soldiers lined up as they would have been when buried, but the last one-third is the “reconstruction” area. This part shows how the soldiers are pieced together and has areas that show what the pit looked like when it was first unearthed and the soldiers were in fragments.
The next building is a museum which showcases individual soldiers that survived in the best condition, including the archer who was discovered intact. Although behind glass, here you could really get up close and personal and examine the soldiers from all sides. There was also a display of weaponry and precious artifacts that were found at the site along with the soldiers.
Afterwards, of course there is the obligatory “gift” shop, and I must say it is next to impossible to come away without buying a terra cotta reproduction. They had them in all sizes—full size (about $3,000 including shipping), half size, coffee table size, all the way down to small figurines. Mary and I both bought repros of the archer, hers a little bigger than mine, but mine was all I felt I could cram into my already overstuffed luggage.
But the best part was yet to come. Minnie had told us that of the four original discoverers, two have died and two are in their eighties and sometimes one or the other of them will show up at the gift shop to sign books. Well, this may have been a put-up job, but sho ‘nuf, there he was smoking a pipe, looking quite sullen and unfriendly, and with a big sign NO PHOTOS on his desk, signing books. Lurking on the periphery of the crowd was a Big Nose woman surreptitiously trying to take his picture; he saw her and this made him even more angry looking. He covered his face with his hat. But in spite of his rotten attitude, it was impossible to resist, and so Mary and I took the bait, bought a book each and after the old fart signed mine he practically threw it at me, with a scowl that was frightening to behold! Still, it’ll be a fun conversation piece and the signature is bona fide Chinese.
1 comment:
Very interesting about Xian and the Terra Cotta Army. Those soldiers look like the grumpy old man they had acting like he was one of the original discoverers...sounds like a tourist "white lie" to me. Very impressive, however, that they could even reconstruct that many of the soldiers!
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