China Part 5 — Terra Cotta Warriors

We had the opportunity to visit the 2,000 year old Army of Terra Cotta Warriors. This experience was right up there with our visit to the Great Wall.
If you are unfamiliar with what I am talking about, the Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang. He was the emperor who first united China in 221 B.C. (also started building the Great Wall). This army was to protect him in the afterlife. His mausoleum is also believed to contain and entire palace (complete with halls and offices, as well as the warriors). We don’t know, however, as a large portion of the site has yet to be excavated. We do know that there are at least 6,000 life size soldiers (all 5’11” – 6’1″) in full battle formation including weapons and true to life poses. Most significantly, while there are only a handful of different figures (infantry, archers, officers and generals), each one has a unique face.
The site was only discovered in the spring of 1974 by a local farmer digging a well. He happened upon one of the remnants of the warriors. As it turned out, his discovery was right on the edge of the massive field of warriors. Now, that fortunate farmer can be found just about every day at the site to sign autographs and accepts donations (as you can imagine, he was compensated by the communist government). However, surprisingly, he doesn’t allow anyone to take his picture.
Now, on to the site…












You can see that not all of the warriors were perfectly perserved. Some were destroyed by marauding looters who wished to undo the work of the emperor, and others were from more natural causes.






There are three pits that contain the warriors. The first is the largest and most spectacular. After we finished wandering around the first pit, we took a break for lunch. There we had a tasty lunch, that included hand made noodles by these cooks.


Also on the grounds there is a small museum that contains a well preserved example of each type of warrior.
This is the kneeling archer.

An officer.

A general.

A cavalryman.

A standing archer.


As you can imagine, there were lots of tour groups. This is one common way to identify everyone in your group…

We also visited a factory that makes modern versions of the statues. While the originals were painted in vibrant colors, the replicas are made to look like they were when the warriors were unearthed (although some still had paint when first excavated, the paint quickly disappeared). The bonus was that we were able to see the process and get up close and personal with the statues.


Wow, what an amazing site and that fact that they were recently discovered, with possibly a vast trove still to be unearthed, made this visit even more memorable.
The last entry will look at more life in Xi’an and a little about the silk making industry in China.
–Jim