7 - Xi'an - Terracotta Warriors

Here I was thinking that Xi’an would be a quieter, more village type feel. Wrong! I was packed chocka block with people on their holiday break. While not as big as Beijing, there appeared to be even more people here crammed into the smaller space. The Chinese love to shop - boy do they love to shop. Their late entry into capitalism has perhaps spurred on a need to catch up on all the shopping they may previously not have had access to. The big shopping malls really are madhouses, with people scrambling to get at bargains, even when they aren’t on special. In general, prices for international brand name items are the same as you’d pay in Australia. But then there are the dud buys, of which there are good quality duds & just plain old dud duds.

At 12:30pm we met in the hotel lobby for our trip out to the famous Terracotta Warriors. We went out there by two public buses - an adventure of its own. When, as a westerner, you use public buses in China, everybody stares at you. They are either thinking, “I never knew there were poor westerners” or “their tour leader is slack & can’t get them the transport they need”. Anyway, with staring a plenty, we arrived at our destination. The warriors were accidentally discovered by a farmer back in 1972 (I think). As he was digging a well searching for water, he retrieved a warrior’s head from underground & was immediately petrified at what he may have done wrong. The actual farmer was there the day we visited the warriors, sitting down signing books purchased at the store. Not a happy chap, he gets really peeved if you take his photo. Obviously someone that isn’t loving the work he does.

The warriors were pretty amazing. To think that this Emperor had a whole army, about 6000 warrior statues, buried with him to protect him in the afterlife. There were archers, chariots, & foot soldiers aplenty, spread across several areas known in archaeological terms as ‘pits‘. And pretty much nobody throughout history had the slightest idea it was there. Never anything documented. No wonder the farmer was surprised at his find. Nearly every one of the statues was damaged to a greater or lesser degree. They had been ransacked on a couple of occasions, & some of the pits have evidence of fire & looting. But the diligent little archaeologists have been working hard to put all the little pieces back to together. They still have a long way to go, no doubt.