Day 5, Xian and the Terra Cotta Soldiers

From Beijing, we flew to Xian and stayed in a 4-star hotel that cost us $70--including breakfast!! It was incredible. Xian has a little over 8 million people living there, and is just as polluted as the other big cities we visited in China. Beijing has about 17 million people, and is huge, but as I said before, they are reducing the pollution for the 2008 Olympics.

The main event here is the Terracotta Soldiers. These were made during the reign of Shi Huang Di, Emperor of Qin, about 247 -210 BC. That boggles the mind just to think about how long ago that was. He employed about 700,000 peasants to complete this army to help rule another empire in his afterlife. Doesn't look like they succeeded in that venture. They were raided a mere 5 years after he died and was buried in his tomb, by General Xiang Yu.

There is evidence of a large fire that burned the wooden structures that once housed the Terracotta Army. The fire was described by Sima Qian, who said that the fire was a consequence of a raid on the tomb by General Xiang Yu less than five years after the death of the First Emperor. According to the historian, Sima Qian, General Xiang’s army looted the tomb and the structures holding the Terracotta Army, as well as setting fire to the necropolis and starting a blaze that allegedly lasted three months (though no other recorded great fire in history ever lasted more than seven days). Because of this, only one statue has survived intact: a statue of a kneeling archer. Despite the fire, however, much of the remains of the Terracotta Army still survive in various stages of preservation, surrounded by remnants of the burnt wooden structures." I stole that quote from Wikipedia, with just a little tweaking.

These soldiers are incredible to gaze upon. While they say none of them were intact at their discovery, the Chinese have done a great job in restoring them so that you cannot tell they were crumbled in pieces.

It is said that the Emperor buried alive the 700,000 peasants with him, in his tomb, to safeguard the secrets of the riches and the entrance to the tomb. This is so disturbing to think that a ruler would kill, in such a cruel manner, his people for this purpose.

The faces of the Terracotta Soldiers are all unique. It is believed that they used about 8 facial forms, and then added personalized and individualized details to the hair, face and facial hair of each soldier. They all stand between 6' ad 6'5" tall. The tallest is the General. They are differentiated by their hair styles, which denote rank within the army. All in all, it is quite incredible and amazing to contemplate how much work went into this project, just for a grave.

Also according to the historian Sima Qian, the tomb, which included much wealth and valuable objects, was booby-trapped in the event that someone was able to find, penetrate and exploit the tomb. Supposedly, when and if a trespasser succeeded in gaining entrance to the tomb, the real trick was to get out--alive. The stairs leading back up to the exit would collapse and form a slide, so that no one could scale back up to freedom. Then, even worse than that, a river of mercury would flow in and kill everyone and anyone who was in the tomb, and still alive. They thought of everything, evidently, to save the treasures.

Now, they are housed in a climate controlled building to aid in the preservation of these soldiers. Initially, when they unearthed them, paint decorated the soldiers, from head to foot. Within 20 minutes, however, when exposed to air, the paint disappeared.

At the end of our tour, we were guided to the "Government Approved Gift and Souvenir Store," where our guide, John, told us that the quality of the items were far superior to any we would find elsewhere, including the vendors outside of the establishment. We didn't buy anything from the "Government Approved Store" for the mere fact that everything was priced very high. Even with that, as is true with all the Chinese vendors, you can negotiate.

The interesting part about the vendors outside of the official Terracotta Soldiers museum and store was the fur they had for sale. I was not allowed to go look at the fur, only because if it was 'real' I wouldn't have been allowed to purchase it anyway. Most of it looked like it could have been a German Shepherd, but I would have liked to see if the white tail belonged to a fox at one time. I guess I'll never know.

After this tour, we were driven to another factory that produced the 'fake' Terracotta soldiers. The fakes looked just like the real ones, but I really wasn't up close to the real ones to do an actual comparison. The factory ones, which had them from the little 3" figurines to the actual 6'5" sized soldiers, were much cheaper than at the government store, but still quite expensive. Especially when we found out from Tim's boss back in Shanghai, that someone he knew bought a life-size soldier, sent it home to Seattle, and put it in his garden; whereupon the next rain rendered it a pile of clay.