Today started at 9am (we are loving our late nights & sleep in's) with a coffee & rebooking one of our train connections that declined overnight. After rectifying the train ticket issue we caught the 206 bus into the city, we missed our stop by 1 block & had to do some walking. We then located the 306 bus at the central train station to take us 40minutes out of town. The bus ride was comfortable & uneventful.
The Terracotta Warriors were originally discovered by village farmers in March 1974 while drilling a well. The terracotta warriors are life like terracotta statues made as funerary objects for the superstitous Emperor Qin Shi Huang to protect & serve in the underworld. The emperor was 13 when he ascended the throne & ordered the construction of the army, it took approximately 38 years to build & 720,000 people worked on the project. The pits hold approximately 8,000 individual statues featuring complicated & vivid detailing, no two are the same. Emperor Qin's terracotta pits are the largest funerary pits and are located 1.5 kilometres east of emperor Qinshihuangs mausoleum, symbolizing the main defending force that guarded the capital before it's emperor died. Surprisingly these pits are not mentioned anywhere in the historical records until they were found.
We viewed pit three first, the smallest of the pits. Pit three was discovered in June 1976 located north of pit 1 & east of pit two. It is about 520 square metres measuring 28.8 metres long from east to west and is in the shape of a 'U'. Investigation shows that pit three was seriously destroyed sometime in history with only 68 pottery figures one chariot and 34 bronze weapons recovered. We spent about 15 minutes in pit three, admiring the warriors, some of which were missing heads & a section that shows the warriors completely smashed to pieces. Archaeologists speculate the removal of the warriors heads was an act of ancient vandalism. Despite the warriors disfigurement they remain quite splendid in comparison to the warriors in pits 1 & 2. Unfortunately there is evidence of fires in pits 1 & 2 which had incinerated details on the warriors and forever destroying the chariots.
Next was pit two, the second largest of the pits and the only one shaped like an L. This pit was discovered in April 1976 covering in area of 6000 square metres . It measures 124 metres long from east to west, 98 metres wide from north to south and 5 metres deep. Different from pit one and pit three, pit two consists of mixed military forces in 4 categories. There is archers, war chariots, cavalrymen and infantry men. This reflects the unique strategy of Qin military. For me, Pit two was slightly disappointing as the excavations were very minimal and you could only see mounds of dirt. At this point you can only speculate what amazing warriors still lay hidden underneath. In it's own way, it's cool to see an active archaeological site. A meticulous & slow job requiring an abundance of patience, something I would not be suited for despite my love of ancient history. Pit two was also the first place where we saw up close fully excavated & restored warriors. They had a different warrior from each category & a horse, now supported & protected behind glass to be enjoyed by millions.Lastly was Pit one. The largest pit is a subterranean earth and wood structure. It measures 230 metres long from east to west & 62 metres wide from north to south. There was a lot of intact warriors as well as a lot of warriors that where under restoration process. Because the warriors were made of pottery, when they were uncovered by archaeologists, a lot of the warriors and horses were mixed together within hundreds of pieces of broken pottery. It's a huge, complicated process to carefully extract them from the pits, restore them to as close to their former glory as possible & then put them back into their places. It's assumed that more than 6000 pottery warriors and horses will eventually be recovered from this pit alone.
Some of the statues are bigger than life size and exquisitely made in extreme and vivid detail. This represents advanced technology in chinese sculptural history. The excavation of the terracotta warriors and horses provide extremely valuable data for the research of Chinese ancient politics, military, science and art.
Definitely one of the coolest things we have seen, an archaeologists or historians dream & for obvious reasons proclaimed an 8th wonder of the world! We will never forget this truly amazing pice of history.
After spending a few hours in the pits and museum we were on our way to the exit, trying to avoid the souvenir vendors when we spotted a food court with western food! Something we have been craving. We both rush into the Subway and are delighted to see it is not ridiculously over priced either! A couple of footlong subs later, we climb onto the bus and fall into a food coma.
Another great day in Xi'an!
- Alli
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