Terracotta Warriors, and some extra stuff

We signed up for a tour to see the Terracotta Warriors. The tour stopped first at the national Terracotta Pottery Workshop. While they brought us here so we could buy things, it ended up being one of our favorite parts of the day. In the workshop, they create terracotta replicas of the warriors in a myriad of sizes using traditional techniques. The clay, from Lishan, is worked into molds, allowed to harden, cleaned, and then fired at 1000 celsius. The largest statues are created in pieces and then put together. Although the original warriors were painted, the modern replicas are not. They retain the black matte color from the firing. The workshop creates other types of Chinese craftware like lacquered furniture and tri-glaze pottery.

After the workshop, we went to the Lin Huang museum where we could not take pictures. This museum is on the sight of the Qingshan Buddhist Temple, destroyed at the end of the Tang Dynasty. A reliquary was found here, said to contain fragments of the Buddha's skull. The small chrystalline pieces were originally stored within a golden reliquary, placed inside a silver reliquary, placed inside a stone reliquary.

We visited two more sites before getting to the Terracotta Warriors, the Winter Palace and the unexcavated First Emperor's Tomb. Both sites were disappointing in their search for the tourist yuan. Except for the bathing pools dating back to the Han period, everything at the site of the old Winter Palace is new construction. The pools are interesting but...

Qin Shi Huang, the self-proclaimed first emperor, became king in 246 BC, unified the country by 221 BC, and ruled until his death in 210 BC. The Terracotta Warriors guard his tomb. His tomb, rumored to contain incredible sights and riches, will not be excavated until the appropriate technology is developed. (When the Terracotta Warriors were first uncovered, the original colors faded within three days because archaeologists did not have a way to preserve them.) Currently, the tomb just looks like a big hill -- kind of boring yet kind of mind-boggling.
The sight of the first Terracotta Warrior pit was incredible. Pit 1 contains about 2000 foot soldiers, discovered in 1974. The first ranks have been unearthed and reconstructed. The reconstruction job is enormous; the soldiers were smashed to pieces.

Pit 2 is enormous, think airplane hanger size. It contains rows of chariots, infantrymen, archers, and calvary. Many of the weapons they originally held are still intact; the edges were coated with a compound that kept them sharp even after thousands of years. A few weapons are on display in this hanger. It is amazing. Unfortunately our camera ran out of batteries so you really just have to take our word for it. There are a few more pictures in Yahoo Pictures but none really do it justice.

The sheer size of the terracotta warrior pits is mind-boggling. The excavation and housing for the pits is well done. Unfortunately, there is simply not enough information for someone used to US museums. The signage is minimal and the explanations sparse. That said, it was definitely worth going to. It just could have been better.