We spent the morning at the amazing Terra Cotta Warriors museum and historical site. This was a favorite stop for many but I don’t think any of us were as happy and enthusiastic about seeing the Terra Cotta Warriors as our own Heather Lucas, Instructor of History at GPC.
She is pictured above doing an interview with me. She has also written about emperor Qin Shihuang and the Terra Cotta Warriors below. If you would like to see a video of the brief interview, it is located at the bottom of this post.
Heather writes, “We visited the Terra Cotta Warriors who guard the tomb of China’s first emperor Qin Shihuang. The site consists of about 10,000 statues – both soldiers and horses. Each statue is different because they were modeled after individual members of the emperor’s army.
Unfortunately, the Qin emperor’s burial grounds were raided and ransacked soon after his death. Shihuang might have been a successful at unifying a war torn region, but making friends was not high on his list of priorities.
The terra cotta army was originally created about 210 B.C.E. to protect the emperor in his afterlife. He wanted to show his strength and power. Shihuang’s living army got lucky. He decided to reproduce soldiers in terra cotta but originally wanted to sacrifice his own men for burial.
No one knows for sure, but rumors claim Shihuang’s body is buried nearby under a gigantic mound. Inside the mound there are supposed to be a river of mercury and other spectacular treasures.
Much of this information was forgotten or ignored until the 1970’s when a group of farmers digging a well unearthed pieces of the terra cotta soldiers. Excavation of the site began soon afterwards. The soldiers were originally very ornate and beautifully painted. After the warriors were uncover the paint oxidized, so most of the color is ancient history too.
The Chinese have recently accepted technology and aid from other countries to protect the warriors that have not yet been excavated. Now the Chinese can continue to preserve an important site demonstrating the glories of ancient Chinese kingdoms.”
