Aquainting a pleasant Aussie traveller over breakfast, I decided to join him and look for the terracotta warriors of emperor Quin Shi Huan. Known as China`s first emperor after he conquered six surrounding kingdoms, emperor Quin is often described as a ruthess tyrant who made his emipre a standard for all modern states to come: As the first emperor to create a centralised state, issuing national standards for weights and measures, and ordering a unified script to be used for all of China. Quin also started the construction of the Great Wall, which made him even more unpopular with his subjects. However--his plan for his own afterlife is probably even more fascinating, and one of the main reason I came to China: Quin ordered the construction of an imperial city below ground. According to history written much later, it took 700 000 labourers some 36 years to complete the city--which supposedly depicts the world over ground with much grandour... The terracotta warriors were Quin`s army in afterlife. It consists of live-sized warriors and horses, made to be crossbowmen, charioteers, cavalry or infantry--and as far as we know every soldier was unique! You don`t think this is amazing? They were fired as a single piece of clay (which is still difficult to do), and so far they have excavated some 7,000 soldiers, horses and chariots. The warriors were discovered in 1974 by some farmes digging a new well, and have been excavated since, with work still in progress. Yes, that is a big toy army. The excavation sites are bildt-in, with huge halls covering them. I feel pretty confident that the park would have looked very different had it been at home, and the display could have been made much better--still, the actual warriors, standing in theur original pits where they were buried, ready for war, are an amazing sight for a pottery freak like me, and I had an absolutely fantastic day at the site. I took lots of photos, but still not able to find a net cafe where I can load them form my camera or iPod to a computer, I cannot show them to you quite yet... Sorry!
Monday, September 15, 2008
The terracotta warriors
Aquainting a pleasant Aussie traveller over breakfast, I decided to join him and look for the terracotta warriors of emperor Quin Shi Huan. Known as China`s first emperor after he conquered six surrounding kingdoms, emperor Quin is often described as a ruthess tyrant who made his emipre a standard for all modern states to come: As the first emperor to create a centralised state, issuing national standards for weights and measures, and ordering a unified script to be used for all of China. Quin also started the construction of the Great Wall, which made him even more unpopular with his subjects. However--his plan for his own afterlife is probably even more fascinating, and one of the main reason I came to China: Quin ordered the construction of an imperial city below ground. According to history written much later, it took 700 000 labourers some 36 years to complete the city--which supposedly depicts the world over ground with much grandour... The terracotta warriors were Quin`s army in afterlife. It consists of live-sized warriors and horses, made to be crossbowmen, charioteers, cavalry or infantry--and as far as we know every soldier was unique! You don`t think this is amazing? They were fired as a single piece of clay (which is still difficult to do), and so far they have excavated some 7,000 soldiers, horses and chariots. The warriors were discovered in 1974 by some farmes digging a new well, and have been excavated since, with work still in progress. Yes, that is a big toy army. The excavation sites are bildt-in, with huge halls covering them. I feel pretty confident that the park would have looked very different had it been at home, and the display could have been made much better--still, the actual warriors, standing in theur original pits where they were buried, ready for war, are an amazing sight for a pottery freak like me, and I had an absolutely fantastic day at the site. I took lots of photos, but still not able to find a net cafe where I can load them form my camera or iPod to a computer, I cannot show them to you quite yet... Sorry!
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I remember watching these guys for the first time during one episode of the travel program "Reisebrev med Erik Diesen" with my family in the mid-80s.
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