While digging for well water in 1974, a farmer and his family stumbled upon the Ancient tombs of the Qin Dynasty and unearthed what we know today as the Terracotta Warriors. All farming in this entire area west of Xi’an was stopped and archeologists from around the world were brought in to begin to understand what was found and how significant this fluke discovery was.
Little did this farmer know then that he had found funery tombs and an army of warriors and horses made from terracotta clay dating back to 210 BC – over two thousand years ago!
On our way to this area of China we stopped into a factory that was responsible for making official replicas of these warriors. Sometimes these “factory and shop stops” on tours are a bit of a hard sales pitch but this was fun – particularly for the kids as they got to get their hands dirty and make a couple warriors themselves.
This UNESCO World Heritage Site is an incredible experience. I had been looking forward to this for months and it did not disappoint. The museum buildings enclose the area where this army was found. The sites are well protected and our guide was a fountain of knowledge about imperial history, myths, war, archeology, geography – every question you asked had a fantastic story behind it.
The Terracotta Army is a form of funerary art buried with the First Emperor of Qin in 210-209 BC (he declared himself the first emperor of China in 221 BC to the end of his life in 210 BC). Their purpose was to help rule another empire with Shi Huang Di in the afterlife. This is the same Emperor who started to build the Great Wall (another place we are very much looking forward to). It was also said as a legend that the Terracotta Warriors were real soldiers, buried with Emperor Qin so that they can defend him from any dangers in the next life.
Almost 700,000 people worked on these warriors, horses and weapons (they have unearthed about 6000 warriors thus far) over several years. They have also found human remains and some of the workers were locked into these tombs to keep working once it was sealed.
What is also quite interesting about these warriors is that each of them is unique. They are not carbon copies of one another. Imagine that – over 2000 years ago, without any machines and they produced individual hand made forms from clay and each one has a different face, body shape and size – incredible!
The archeology work continues and they have decided to leave many of the pit areas and tombs alone until they find new technology so that they can preserve as much as possible. It was a real “Indiana Jones” day – to think that such an incredible place was found only 30 years ago and there is still so much to learn was quite exciting. It was a fantastic day!!
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