Anna's Next Adventure: Mighty Warriors . . .

At the very uncrowded Terracotta Warriors - Chinese style with the sun umbrella!

The first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, was a mad man by the sounds of it. Who would ever think to build an army made of clay, place it in underground chambers then seal it off?Apparently he was so arrogant that he thought he would rule even after he died. Hmmmm.Mind you, he was the one to unify China and to order the building of the Great Wall.

At Pit 1

Nobody would have known about this unless the peasant farmers decided to dig a well several kilometres east of the city of Xian in 1974. Four years later, the first pit of Terracotta Warriors was open to the public. We happened to visit on the 1^st of October, the 30^th anniversary of the warriors being open and also the 60^th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. Luckily for us, most people decided to watch the celebrations on television and not visit the famous tourist site.

Pit 1

Just like the Great Wall, I expected a visit to the Terracotta Warriors to simply be a ‘done that’ experience, but again, I was surprised. I was extremely amazed at the sight that stood before us.We had a wonderful guide, Sally, who showed us around and was full of interesting facts (so she should be after being a tour guide nearly every day since 1994!).

Pit 2 - the roofs of the underground chambers here that have collapsed over time

Did you know that hundreds of years after the army was enclosed underground, people used to build tombs on top, with no idea of what was underneath? The warriors were built, buried, destroyed (by some nasty people after Qin Shi Huang’s death) in chambers with a wooden roof laden with earth. Many years after, people buried their loved ones on top of these cavities without realising what lay below. Amazing.

Pit 2

Did you know that every soldier is unique and that each is positioned very precisely? Qin Shi Huang didn’t just wack a heap of soldiers under ground and bury them. There was a very particular order to the layout. For example, in Pit 1, over 6000 soldiers and horses are precisely positioned to best protect the Emperor. There are soldiers facing each direction, archer men at the front and the more highly ranked officers towards the back. Pit 3, although small, is suspected to have been the control centre of the army – it is where the most highly ranked officers were found. It wasn’t just the precision of the army positions, but also the actual soldiers. Each soldier in unique – right down to the tread on the sole of their shoes!

Pit 1

Did you know that the Terracotta Warriors were originally coloured? A silly fact, but I didn’t know this and was surprised. After seeing many pictures, I assumed that all the warriors were originally the colour of clay. Obviously the colour has faded since, but I was surprised that they hadn’t been restored with colour.

Pit 1

I have a lot of respect and admiration for archeologists. This is the one job that you really do have to love in order to complete it. Most other jobs can be done without any passion, but archaeology? You must really have to love it to spend all those painstaking hours collecting broken shards of terracotta, brushing them with a toothbrush and then putting them back together. I was surprised to find that the tourist site is still an active archaeology site. You can see the different stages of the restoration in process.