Terracotta Warriors

"A person who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the man doing it."
- Chineese Proverb


Today we visited the site of the terracotta warriors and horses of Shi Huang Di, the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty. The story goes that Shi Huang Di built a Mausoleum protected by 8000 life-sized soldiers and horses to give him supremacy in the afterlife. It took an estimated 700,000 workers to build the tomb, but then shortly after Shi Huang Di died, peasant revolutionists looted the tomb, then started a fire that is believed to have lasted for three months. The site was buried since and re-discovered in 1974 when a local farmer pulled up a terracotta warrior head while digging a well. The resulting archaeological find is extremely impressive.

Note: One thing they don't tell you is that terracotta figures were not cleanly dug-up as you see them. The figures were smashed into pieces during the looting. Archaeologists have spent the past 30+ years restoring/piecing together to what you see now.