There are places in the world, famous travel destinations, that I have heard of since I was a kid that seemed spectacular, exotic and beyond any hope that I would one day visit them. The home of the Terracotta Warriors is one of those places. When they were found in 1974 by local farmers of Xi Yang village and soon came to the worlds attention, China was closed off to the rest of the world. The Cultural Revolution was coming to an end. Travelling anywhere overseas seemed beyond me, travelling to China was never going to be possible.
So when our Chinese friends offered to show our group of travelling friends their country and the opportunity to visit Xian specifically to visit the soldiers, I was both thrilled and a little nervous.
Nervous because I had a quiet fear that what I hoped would be impressive may not live up to expectations. I was very pleased to discover that this world heritage site was indeed impressive!
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Park lands surround the site.
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| Mr Yang signing my souvenir book |
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Entrance to Pit 1.
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We tend to travel outside the peak seasons in colder months. Less other people travel then. Visiting China in March was especially useful as the majority of tourists in China are Chinese and they tend to travel in summer, so we could move about without the crowds. Over 20 million Chinese people visit the site each year. For us there was no pushing, shoving or feeling pressured to keep moving while taking photos. We could stand alone and study what a massive achievement each of the statues represented.
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| Pit 1 |
The three pits open and on display cover over 20,000 square meters filled with an army of almost 8,000 warriors and horses arranged in battle formation. This place is vast, yet it only shows a fraction of what was buried in readiness for the Emperor's afterlife. Emperor Qin (259 BC to 210 BC) was the "Beginning Emperor" the first leader to unify feudal states of ancient China.
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| Warriors in repair |
700,000 men from across the empire were sent to work on the emperors mausoleum. At the same time he had many more thousands of men work on rebuilding and connecting the Great Wall. All this when the population of the country of was only around 15 million. To protect his treasures, those who knew the position of the burial grounds were buried alive in the tunnels.
Our guide, David, told us that after Emperor Qin Shi Huang died the farmers revolted, they found the army, smashed every statue and set fire to the roof structures. It is said that the pits burned for a month. Less than a handful of statues were found intact.
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| Pieces of Terracotta Horses |
All those we see now have been painstakingly put back together in what must be the worlds biggest 3D jigsaw puzzle. Piecing the statues back together still goes on. New areas are being uncovered by the resident archeologist. Walking around the pits you can see partially dug up soldiers and horses, their faces still buried. Others have been glued back together, signs of burning evident, and wrapped in what looks like gladwrap holding them together. Each with their own unique head, face, and expressions, and stylish hair dos.
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| Burnt 'roof' structures |
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| Archeological work continues |
To think that if the local farmers dug their well a little further away, it is possible none of us would know of this fascinating place.
I was very impressed.
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| Sign showing where the farmers dug their well |
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