4-23 The Terracotta Warriors

Seeing the Terracotta Warriors and horses has been on my wish list ever since Lisa started her journey through Asia.  It ranks up there with the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City - both of which we saw in 2016.  Of course this means there are billions of other tourists all trying to crowd around the rectangle that encloses the soldiers.  This brings out old behavior we experienced in 2016 where people were willing to knock you down in order to get to the front or stay with their group.  We had noticed a great improvement in that type of behavior this time.  We have seen many signs that admonish people to be civil to each other.  

The Terracotta Warriors were discovered completely by accident by a group of peasants who were digging a well in 1974.  They found the shattered pieces of the warriors and contacted the authorities.  Since than three major pits have been excavated - these are the buildings you can visit.  But the extent of the project is huge and covers an area over 25 miles wide.  So far an estimated 8,000 warriors have been unearthed.  The tomb of Qin Shi Huang is nearby - and remains unexcavated.  Along with all the warriors, horses and chariots, there are buried nearby his entire household of people including jugglers, etc.  Qin took his entire government along with him when he died.  

The first building houses the largest collection of warriors and horses.  Even here there is a lot of areas yet to be excavated.

Warriors and horses

The warriors all have different facial expressions and features.  All different ethnic people in China are represented.

You can see how big the building is in this photo.  Viewing is one level up around the outside of the building.

In buildings 2 and 3 you see a lot more of this - what it looks like before the warriors, horses or chariots are put back together.

Putting together horses.

This section is the warrior hospital.  You can see parts of the soldiers are missing.  Each warrior, each horse or other item is marked to show its number and its original location - so they can be put back into place once they are complete.

Since this area is in active work site - there is a solder guarding it.

This is in the 3rd building.  Here are the horsemen and horses.

These next few are photos of pictures.  Long ago you could actually go among the warriors.  Now only the extremely high VIPs can go there.

In this building they have replicas of the warriors to show how they are dressed and their hair, beards and other symbols of their rank.

The uncovered warriors quickly lost their color.  They were originally painted in blues and other colors.

I think this photo is the 3rd pit or site.

We needed something to eat after all that walking and to keep us going.  We are not done with the day yet!