Terracotta Warriors

They call the Terracotta Warriors the "8th" Wonder of the World. It truly is an amazing thing to witness in person. It is just impossible to imagine orchestrating this project. The Terracotta Warriors is a form of funerary art buried with the Emperor of Qin in 209-210 BC. Their purpose was to help rule another empire with Shi Huang Di in the afterlife. In addition to the warriors, an entire man-made necropolis for the emperor has been excavated. The Terracotta Warriors were discovered in March 1974 by local farmer drilling a water well. His farm was taken so the could uncover the pits....so China made a "job" for him to support his family. They taught him how to sign his name so tourist and locals have him autograph books. He has become a celebrity in China. His siggy was pretty interesting.

An estimate of over 6,000 warriors in 3 pits. Also there was chariots with horses. All the Warriors are life sized and that no two are alike. Most researchers believe that each statue is based on an actual soldier of that time. It took over 700,000 workers to complete this feat.


Destruction of the Terracotta Warriors

There is evidence of a large fire that burned the wooden structures that once housed the Terracotta Army. It 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 Sima Qian, General Xiang’s army looted the tomb and the structures holding the Terracotta Warriors, as well as setting fire to the necropolis and starting a blaze that allegedly lasted three months. 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 Warriors still survives in various stages of preservation, surrounded by remnants of the burnt wooden structures.

Pictures:

1. Pit 1, the largest. It is rows and rows of the army. In the middle, the archeologists haven’t even started to dig yet! All the warriors had bronze swords and shields.
2. A bronze sculpture of the Emperor. It weighs close to a ton.
3. More of the army.
4. Warriors that is being pieced together. Only one warrior out of 6,000 survived, fully intact.
5. Ok….the Chinese people like to take photos of Westerners/African Americans. They would either just take my photo without asking or they would just run up and pose with me. Super weird!!!! I am in a several family albums now. They are especially fascinated with African Americans. They would just mob them and take a million photos with them. This guy is in China’s Army and just finished working with Earthquake destroyed cities.
6. The Kneeling Archer is the only warrior that survived the fire.