Armies of the Dead

6:30am really isn't too bad a time to meet up on this sort of trip, though I was feeling a little tired! We went for breakfast to a sort of super Chinese McDonald's type place, which sold steamed buns for a mere yuan a piece! I do miss my cereal, but I have to say that steamed buns are becoming a firm favourite of mine. Shame I don't ever recall seeing them at home.

The minibus picked us up at 7:30 and we had about an hour's ride to the Terracotta Warriors. We also had a local guide for today, English name Linda, who gave us some history during the bus ride. The Terracotta Warriors are an army of clay warriors each carved to resemble a specific individual. They were created around 210 BC to protect and serve Qin Shi Huang, first Emperor of china and the Qin dynasty after his reincarnation. They were arrayed in battle formation, and buried in pits roofed with timbers and then covered with soil. 

These pits eventually caved in, leading to the destruction of many statues, and there is very little written record of them, so they were not rediscovered until 1974, when some farmers digging a well (due to how dry Xi'an is) stumbled across them. They were given $5 and were reportedly delighted!

Of our group, Simon (aka the Beijing Barger) was definitely the most excited; it had been one of his life's ambitions to see the Terracotta Warriors. Christine (his wife) is obviously bemused by how giddy he is.

We managed to beat the majority of the crowds thanks to our early start. Today was a Sunday, so it would be even more busy than usual. The pits (of which there are 4) are housed in some fairly innocuous buildings, and the surroundings seem to have been landscaped a little from the farmers fields they were formerly in order for you to have a pleasant walk.

Without further ado, let's get to the photos:

A fairly innocuous building.

A panorama of pit 1 as you see it when you enter. There are presumed to have been about 6,000 warriors in here originally, though many are still being excavated, and are currently in pieces.

For some reason the place I managed to squeeze in was the row for pajama-wearers

This lot are more sensible: armour is better if you are planning to protect your emperor. Not sure the guy without a head is as efficient as he could be though...

They didn't used to like wearing helmets because they were made from jade and super heavy, made it harder to kill loads of enemies and get rewarded.

A selfie was once again necessary to get both myself and the warriors in. As I mentioned before though, I've very rarely taken them, so my ability to look in the right place and seem vaguely natural are appalling. When selecting one to post I had to choose between looking suicidal, tired to the point of death, or mildly crazy. I opted for the latter

These guys have just been restored and are itching to get back into combat

I hear the warriors were carved to resemble individual soldiers so... what the hell is with this guy's tiny head and freakishly long arms?!

Terracotta Mummy. This was just before we left pit 1, and it was a lot busier at this time!

In the (horribly overpriced) gift shop. A bull dragging a truly giant lettuce/bok choy because why not

Pit 2. It had totally collapsed, so there was only one fully intact warrior found. This was where the special troops like archers (standing and kneeling) and cavalrymen were, and (I think) there were about 2,000 warriors stationed here

A restored standing archer. He used to have a bow, he isn't dabbing

The man, the legend, the immortal kneeling archer which was the last statue standing

Simon smelling the osmanthus to calm himself from all the excitement. To be fair he had just bought a half life size Terracotta Warrior made from the clay excavated from the site. Plus it does smell really nice

Pit 3. This was for officers and chariots and such. Only about 60 statues in total

Me with a replica warrior, channelling my inner kneeling archer

One of the aforementioned chariots from pit 3. Made from bronze and pieced together from thousands of shards

So you may be wondering what happened to the pictures from the 4th pit I mentioned. Well... there aren't any. It was completely emptied by tomb robbers (I think), so they don't even bother opening it!

After the warriors, we went for a buffet at a "farmer's" house; one of those who found the warriors (or their descendant, I'm not sure). They couldn't keep their farm land for obvious reasons, so they got houses built nearby, and apparently do better now than they did before, which is nice for them!

In the afternoon we visited another tomb, a Han dynasty tomb, which happened to be of an emperor who shortly followed Mr Terracotta Warrior, Liu Qi. This tomb has 81 pits (because that is 9x9, I presume), but the figures are all in miniature, about a foot tall. There are about 100,000 to make up for that though!

Their arms were wood, and so they rotted. Their clothes were silk so they disintegrated. They are lying down because it has been nearly 2,000 years, and they got tired.

Mud got into this pit, and so they maintained their standing positions because they were entombed

This emperor also chose to have female servants, eunuchs, and animals for food prepared. Cover your eyes Misty, some of those are dogs :(

What they looked like with arms and clothes

The oldest tea leaves in the world, found preserved here.

The most famous figure here, a maid in near perfect condition, covering her mouth because a woman being seen to smile is bad etiquette

The Han dynasty tomb was ok, but it was far from as impressive as the Terracotta Warriors in my eyes: there weren't really many figures on display (animals aside), and none were in tact thanks to wooden arms, plus they were mass produced in moulds instead of individually carved, and they were so much smaller too. It was much quieter though, which was nice.

We got the bus back to the hotel then, but I'll leave the evening's events for tomorrow as I imagine that post will be shorter.

Editor's notes:

Misty (2nd) Pic of the Day

Misty having a great time at the Rotherham show while dad was hitting the centre of an archery target and I was using a bow and arrow to save the human race by hitting a zombie in the heart. Looks like we've been channelling the terracotta archers as well!