Xi'an - The Terracotta Warriors

The Terracotta Warriors are widely regarded as the "Eighth Wonder of the World." I could easily just post some pictures of them, but you probably wouldn't get a real feel for what they are and what this place is like, and by writing a bit I get a reference for what we saw as well.

If there's one city that you have to go to in China, you have to go to Beijing. If you get two cities to go to where is the second city? I'm going to say Xi'an.

Why Xi'an? Xi'an (formerly known as Chang An) is a city with a history that dates back to over 1,000 B.C., and it served as the capital of 11 Chinese dynasties. This was the final city on the east end of the legendary Silk Road. It was a thriving city of trade, and it was a rich city.

Xi'an is most famous for the Terracotta Warriors, a ceramic/pottery army of over 7,000 life-sized soldiers, horses and chariots. They were discovered in 1974 when four peasant farmers were digging a well and reported their finding pieces of pottery. Archaeologists ended up finding three pits with Terracotta Warriors, a fourth pit that was empty, and Qin Shi Huang's tomb.

Do you see the sign in the pit with the red arrow in the picture below? That sign is marking where the well dug in 1974 was. What an incredibly lucky find...

Like so many of the world's wonders, we can thank the tyrannical rule of a king to pool the society's resources to build these wonders, whether they be castles, Great Walls, or Terracotta Warriors.

Both the Great Wall and the Terracotta Warriors are attributable to Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang, who was the first person to unify all of the kingdoms of what is now China. While Qin Shi Huang built the Great Wall, his wall no longer exists. The Great Wall that stands today was built in the 1400s. Qin Shi Huang unified China in 221 BC and ruled until his death in 210 BC. Yes, China's name derives from his name Qin. Following his death civil war broke out, but the Han Dynasty subsequently reunified China in 202 BC.

At the time in Qin Shi Huang lived, it was believed that what ever was buried with you was taken to the next life. Emperor Qin wanted his army with him in the next life, and that is why he had the Terracotta Warriors made... to take with him to the next life.

This really is the basis of an Indiana Jones movie. Qin Shi Huang's tomb was complete with "flowing mercury rivers and ingenious defences against intruders." Additionally, "The artisans who built it were buried with it to keep the secrets." You can just see Indiana Jones exploring the tomb while dodging traps and stumbling upon skeletons along his path.

Actually, it didn't become an Indiana Jones movie, but it became the basis for the recently-released "The Mummy" movie series. Haven't seen the movie? Well now you need to go rent it!

Why did the emperor's tomb have "flowing mercury rivers?" At the time, alchemists believed that since mercury can dissolve gold, it somehow provided everlasting life. So Qin Shi Huang started consuming mercury in his diet. They hadn't discovered mercury poisoning, yet, so they caused the emperor to become psychotic, paranoid, and bipolar before finally prematurely killing him with his mercury supplements.

Mao Zedong called Qin Shi Huang China's greatest leader and looked to him for inspiration. Qin Shi Huang, for example, ordered all of the empires books to be burned and intellectuals to be either killed or sent to remote areas of the empire. Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) the Communist Party also engaged in similar practices of destroying books and killing intellectuals or banishing them to rural areas to be "re-educated."

Being compared to the First Emperor, Mao responded: "He buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried forty-six thousand scholars alive... You [intellectuals] revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold.

For all of Qin Shi Huang's vice's there were many virtues. He unified the country's legal system, money, built a robust transportation system, built a defense (the Great Wall) to protect against the northern invaders, and unified the language through written script. All of us students of Chinese and Japanese have Qin Shi Huang to thank (or curse!) for today's Chinese characters.

So with that background, let's enjoy the wondrous site, brought to you courtesy of slavery and oppression. While I say that kind of tongue-in-cheek, I truly do mean that it is an amazing site that should not be missed!

A couple of years after the first emperor died, the pits were raided, looting any valuables and smashing all but one of the Terracotta Warriors. I would suspect that when the wood roof ceilings rotted and collapsed that the earth above would have broken the the figures, but it probably would have been easier for the archaeologists to put them back together again since the pieces would have been in close proximity to each other.

The three pits are still actively being dug. There is no digging during they day while tourists spend their money, but at night they continue to dig and recover the figures.
Pit 1: 6000 warriors and horses
Pit 2: 1,300 warriors and horses
Pit 3: the command center for the army's senior leadership

Now for some pictures:

The grounds of the Terracotta Warriors obviously have had a lot of money flow into them. The buildings and grounds are gorgeous. Here's a picture of the museum.

A sign giving a brief overview of what this place is about. Notice the mountains in the background...

All four of the farmers who were digging the well are still alive today. At least one of them is here everyday to sign books about the place. Having them there does sell books, we probably wouldn't have bought one otherwise. Here is Dad getting his book signed. Also notice the picture of him with President Clinton in the lower right corner of the picture. Bill was everywhere we were on this trip.
Mom & Dad outside of the museum. Pit 1 is there to the left.

Pit 1 pictures:

You're obviously not allowed down in the pits unless you're an authorized archaeologist...

...or President Clinton on his 1998 trip:

I had originally thought that the Terracotta Warriors were buried, but they were not. As this sign says, ditches were dug to place the figures in, and then a wood roof was built over the ditches and then buried, effectively creating a collection of underground tunnels. There are 11 corridors in Pit 1, which are 10 feet wide and paved with tiles.

This area is at the back of Pit 1. This is where the figures are put back together again.

Still lots of missing pieces...

Pit 2 Pictures:

Outside of Pit 2... another nice building
Mom & Dad looking at Pit 2 with our tour guide

They even use bamboo ladders here...
This shows entrances to corridors where the figures were placed
Fragments of horses and warriors yet to be put together

Here is the one figure that was recovered fully intact. It is a kneeling archer. His bow and arrows were made of wood and disintegrated over the years.

Each warrior's face is different. Here is a close-up of his...

Mom & Dad checking out the kneeling archer...
This is a picture of the sole of the foot that you can see. These figures are amazingly detailed, you can see even his sole has treads.

More pieces yet to be put together. Notice the tile/brick floors of the pits.

Here's an interesting "find" while we were here. Read this sign about chrome plating:
Turns out this "new" technology discovered in the 20th Century had already been in use over 2,000 years prior. Here is the chrome plated sword...

What's the significance of this? There are certain historical books out there that mention various metals and processes that were used over 2,000 years ago. Some scientists discredit these books claiming that such techniques were not invented for centuries or even millenia afterwards. How foolish and prideful that is to discredit those claims, and this is yet another example why we shouldn't put our complete faith in science to prove our history.

Ok next picture. This "guard" made me laugh. I wasn't sure he was even working...
... but then he heard my camera and he quickly popped to attention!

Pit 3 pictures:

Mom and Dad leaving Pit 2 going to Pit 3 in the distance

This is the smallest of the pits, as it was the headquarters for the army.

Last stop... of coarse this place is going to have a souvenir shop! You can buy your own replica Terracotta Warrior. They say that only these in the museum shop are guaranteed to made from the same clay that the original statues were made from. But the price to pay, for a full-size warrior is $15,000! You can get the smaller statues anywhere in China for about a 1/10th the price they charge here at the museum souvenir shop.

If you want to upgrade to a warrior made from jade...... it only costs RMB496,000, or about $73,000. I almost bought it, but then I thought that if it's jade it is no longer a "terracotta" warrior, so what's the point?

The only obnoxious part of the day is that you had to wonder how you were going to be scammed next. The taxi driver called his tour guide friend who met us when we arrived, she in-turn pressured us to by things at the gift store and go to some restaurant... you could just see the commissions would flow from one to another. I'm sure our tour guide thought she was going to get my parents to buy some jewelry... she had been pushing the topic of jade throughout the day. When we finally arrived at the gift store my mom told her that she wasn't interested in buying any jewlry and the tour guide lost her cool and said, "You must sit down and listen to them... they're experts!" Sorry, but that tactic doesn't work with us, especially not with my mom. We were out of there quick. Besides that part (and that part was quite small, and a bit funny too) the rest of the experience was fantastic.