The Terracotta Warriors near Xian are another legacy from the Emperor Qin and are part of his highly elaborate mausoleum complex which took over 35 years to complete (starting around 246 BC). They were discovered by farmers drilling a well in 1974 and excavation of the site is still going strong, not just due to the sheer size of the discovery, but mainly because almost all of the figures were broken. This was not, however, caused by the passage of time - they were deliberately smashed during a peasant uprising after the death of the Emperor. Qin was the first Emperor to unite the whole of China, but he achieved this by being extremely severe (with the death penalty for the slightest crime - like being late for work!). His successors could not maintain this authority and China's first dynasty ended in rebellion a few years after Qin's death. We were told that a group of artisans were delayed by a flood and that since they knew they would be executed for this, they lead the peasant uprising and brought down the first dynasty.
Previous Emperors used to be buried with their slaves but slavery had been abolished. So, to make up for this, Qin had the Terracotta Warriors made to be buried near him to protect him in the afterlife. There are supposed to be over 6,000 figures, each supposedly different with the face of an actual soldier from that time. They were all made 15% larger than average to appear more fearsome. The thick walls between the ranks were built to support a log roof which covered the warriors before the whole site was concealed under earth. You can still see the indentations where the logs lay in this picture. There are still many more warriors to be excavated and we saw pieces of the ones recently excavated at the back. The Terracotta Warriors were originally each armed with a weapon to portray the image of a menacing guard for the dead Emperor but most of these were taken by the peasants during the uprising to use against the real army.
Emperor Qin's mausoleum actually lies about a mile away from the Terracotta Warrior museum. It is under the largest burial mound in the world - much bigger than The Pyramids in Egypt but nowhere near as impressive as it just looks like a big hill. His mausoleum has yet to be excavated but it promises to be even more awe inspiring than the Terracotta Warriors. Unfortunately we were told that this excavation is not planned to happen until the year 2050. We were given 2 hours to explore the site which included a guided tour and a film re-enacting the construction and subsequent destruction of the warriors. Photography was strictly forbidden - which was a shame as we are sure we didn't see anywhere near as many warriors as these postcards show. Lina thinks that some were at the cleaners because Al Gore (who was Vice-President of the USA at the time) was due to visit the next day - the whole place smelt strongly of wet paint as the place had just been decorated for his visit. |
