Friday in Xi'an

Well, for some reason the hotel turned off our internet connection. It worked fine on early Friday morning but then went off. The hotel told us that “there was a problem with the city” (or something like that). We found out later that Lena had no problem all day on Friday. So apparently they turned our rooms off (a little strange). Anyway, we left off with us completing our evening at the show in Xi’an. On Friday morning we headed out to the see the Terracotta soldiers.






It is a very long drive, way out into the country. But capitalism and tourism is alive and well in China. This is a huge complex very much geared to large crowds and tourists.. The facility is beautiful with well kept gardens, and well maintained, newer buildings. On the way there, Sheri was explaining the history to us. This is the tomb of the first Qin dynasty emperor. He unified China from 6 States by conquering these states. Early in his life (he became ruler at the age of 13) he had to begin planning his tomb. He was a great conqueror, and had a great army. He is the one who had all of the small walls around the 6 states connected to form the Great Wall that protected all of China. He believed that in the after life you live underground…he wanted to maintain his same status and military power. So, the original idea was to bury his army with him. His advisors thought that probably would not go over too well, so they convinced him to have craftsmen make replicas of his soldiers, their armament and their horses.

In the early 70’s, 6 farmers were digging a well and came across broken fragments of terracotta. This was the discovery of the tomb. When we went into the main receiving building, the only remaining farmer of the six farmers was there signing his book about the discovery (of course we got one). We were warned that Chinese over the age of 80 do not want their picture taken as it will “Steal their spirit” (and they get really angry). We didn’t take his picture, and of course bunches of other people were trying so he had this big fan he would hold up in front of his face to block the picture.

There are actually 6 pits discovered so far. Three are open to the public. The largest is pit 1 which actually has 8000 soldiers, you can only see 1,000. Believe it or not ALL of these soldiers were found in pieces. Turns out after the Qin emperor died (he reigned for 37 years), his son took over. The people revolted and destroyed his temple (which is said to have burned for 3 months because is was so big). One of the other things they did was storm his tomb and smash all the soldiers. That is why they are in so many pieces. Interesting also is the fact that these soldiers were all painted. When they first opened the tomb in the 70s they didn’t know any better and let air get to the soldiers. The paint immediately dried up and came off the soldiers.. Today in pit 2, where they are still excavating, they have left the soldiers underground. They are all still painted and they have found method to preserve the paint. They also believe they know where the exact tomb is located that houses the emperor’s remains. I didn’t understand completely what Sheri was saying about this, but she indicated that they would not attempt to excavate for another 100 years.






Pictures do not do this site justice. It is enormous. The floor of this tomb is completely tiled. When you see the condition of these soldiers in pieces, it is hard to believe they could assemble them at all. Sheri said it takes one archeologist 2 years to repair one soldier. They work at night when the site is closed. So it is taken them a long time. They opened site 2 up just when we got there. There was a very toxic smell that Sheri said comes from the solvents and materials they use when working on the soldiers.

Another amazing thing we learned was that chrome plating techniques were discovered in Germany in 1937 and in the US 1950. The Qin dynasty had chrome plating which is 2,200 years BEFORE the Germans figured it out. They know this because the sword of the only terracotta solder that was a general, had a chrome plated sword. Also, the horses all had gold and silver harnesses. Apparently it is very difficult to meld gold and silver because they have different melting points. But there were exquisite examples of this found in the tomb. So, the technology of the Qin dynasty was very advanced. Isn’t it amazing how these technologies can be completely lost and have to be rediscovered throughout history?














I think the girls were overwhelmed with the whole site. Becky had just studied this in school 2 months ago and was now standing at the actual site and had seen the farmer who made this discovery.




























One thing is for certain, and is somewhat surprising. China has gotten this capitalism and tourism thing down well. But, with such a beautiful facility, you walk out and you are accosted by all these cheesy street vendors that are barking their wares and coming up to you. We literally were followed by guys trying to sell knock off soldiers for a buck. Sheri had warned us to not even talk to these guys, just keep walking. If you want to buy something, but it in the museum shop (which is about 4x what you would pay for it in a shop on the street).
But despite this, it was a fascinating visit. A very well done museum and quite an education.