Another of the ‘great things’ to see in China, the Terracotta Warriors close to Xi’an. These are one more of those man-made creations you can’t really grasp the size of, or understand the time taken to create these warriors, until you’re there to see it with your own eyes. The detail in each warrior is amazing, and the steps that were taken to create each one hard to fathom in this day and age. This ‘pit’ below is the main one and the one which is probably known the best. It hasn’t been fully exposed yet, there are yet more warriors still to be uncovered. On this site there are more than 8,000 warriors, plus horses.
The way in which the warriors have been laid out is so precise, and like they would be when going into battle. In the picture above, on the right, you will see three lines of warriors, and although you can’t see, their battle uniform is very plain. These were the warriors who were expected to be slaughtered first by the forces they were encountering. The planners of the day were obviously very studious as they knew which way the enemy would come from!!
Not only were there warriors to protect the Emperor, there were also horses with carriages attached. Unfortunately, the carriages have perished over the many centuries since they were lined up, but the horses have survived. There are many broken warriors and horses because in the years that followed their creation, and the fall of the Emperor, new armies came to this site, broke in, torched the place and then smashed many of the warriors and artefacts which had been left. Some of the warriors and horses have been reconstructed, many are just piles of terracotta.
Looking towards the back of this great ‘pit’ is what to me looked like the scene from Star Wars with the Storm Troopers all lined up, but I’m sure they didn’t share the concept of lining them up like this with each other!
There is another ‘pit’ fairly recently revealed which is like the command centre for the warriors. Here the top military command could meet and send out their instructions to the warriors. It has been very carefully constructed with the scene set very well, back centuries ago.
Finally, we saw some of the individual warriors and generals who had been removed from the ‘pits’. They had varying levels of dress, depending on whether they were cannon fodder and expected not to survive past the first few minutes of the battle, archers, infantry and generals. Their uniforms gave away their position and rank. As you will probably know, each piece at this site is unique, down to their beer bellies. This is a place to be awe inspired by what society could do so long ago.
