Asian Adventure: Cathay Pacific B777-300ER Business Class San Francisco to Hong Kong
Asian Adventure: Cathay Pacific Lounge Review: The Cabin at HKG
Asian Adventure: Cathay Dragon A330-300 Business Class Hong Kong to Beijing
Asian Adventure: Regent Beijing Hotel
Asian Adventure: Beijing - Dongcheng District
Asian Adventure: Beijing - The Great Wall
Asian Adventure: Beijing - Run-ze Jade Garden
Asian Adventure: Beijing - The Sacred Way of the Ming Tombs
Asian Adventure: Beijing - The Legend of Kung Fu
Asian Adventure: Beijing - Tiananmen Square
Asian Adventure: Beijing - The Forbidden City
Asian Adventure: Beijing - Hutong Tour via Rickshaw, Tea Tasting, Flying to Xi’an
Asian Adventure: Hotel Shangri-La Xi’an
Asian Adventure: Xi’an - Qing Dynasty Terra Cotta Warriors
Asian Adventure: Xi’an - Tang Dynasty Dinner and Show
Asian Adventure: Xi’an Wrap-Up, Flying to Lhasa, Lhasa Home Visit
Asian Adventure: Shangri-La Hotel Lhasa
Asian Adventure: Lhasa - Jokhang Temple and Barkhor Market
Asian Adventure: Lhasa - Canggu Nunnery and Sera Monastery
Asian Adventure: Lhasa - Potala Palace
Asian Adventure: Leaving Lhasa and Flying to Chongqing
Asian Adventure: Viking Emerald
Asian Adventure: Shibaozhai Temple
Asian Adventure: Cruising the Three Gorges
Asian Adventure: Three Gorges Dam
Asian Adventure: Jingzhou City Walls Tour
Asian Adventure: Wuhan - Hubei Bells Performance and Provincial Museum
Asian Adventure: Shanghai - Shanghai Museum
Asian Adventure: Fairmont Peace Hotel, Shanghai
Asian Adventure: Shanghai - Old Shanghai and Yuyan Gardens
Asian Adventure: The New Otani Tokyo Hotel
Asian Adventure: Tokyo - City Tour
Asian Adventure: Mt. Fuji and Hakone Tour Returning by Shinkansen
Asian Adventure: ANA Suites Lounge Review, Tokyo Narita
Asian Adventure: All Nippon Airways B777-300ER First Class Tokyo Narita to Houston
We enjoyed cool but sunny weather for our day in Xi'an and I was really looking forward to seeing the warriors all lined up where they'd been found. As we'd seen with the Ming tombs, the burial site for the emperor Qin Shi Huang (chin see hwang), the first of the Qin dynasty, was guided by feng shui with the burial site on the southern slope of a mountain and hills surrounding it on each side, almost like arms on a chair. The first Emperor Qin took the throne in 246 BC and that's when this project got underway.
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| Qin Shi Huang |
Qin died in 210 BC at the ripe old age of 49 (wait, what?) and by that time this project covered roughly 38 square miles. It's estimated there are over 8000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and another 150 cavalry horses contained in the three large archaeological pits. Until technology advances further most of these figures will not be uncovered because they were painted beautiful colors that begin to peel and fade once they're exposed to air for as little as 15 seconds. There is actually another large pit that was found but it was empty. A number of smaller pits containing figures things like bronze carriages, terra cotta acrobats and strong men, stone armor suits and burial sites of both horses and laborers. So this area was basically "under construction" for Qin's entire reign with entire lives practically lived on-site.
From the main gate it's a little bit of a hike to reach the pits though it wouldn't have been too bad. But Viking arranged for us to ride on these carts which allowed us to skip ahead of those who did walk. Naturally, the sponsors had their logo out for all to see!
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| A tram ride to the pits? I'm lovin' it! |
After exiting the tram we followed the path to the plaza where we could see all three pits. Most of the soldiers are in Pit 1, the most famous pit. But if you get to visit be sure to stop at Pits 2 and 3 as well as they are definitely worth seeing.
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| Pit 1 |
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| Pit 2 |
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| Pit 3 |
Upon entering Pit 1 you step out of the lobby and on to a raised concrete slab at the end of the building. This is the famous view seen in so many photos: the soldiers all lined up in rows, as if they were part of a military inspection. Of course it's crowded at this position as everyone wants a good photo. Without a super-duper camera it's hard to convey just how large this space is.
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| Pit 1 looks pretty vast from the entrance |
The room almost feels like an athletic field and indeed it's plenty large enough to be one. At 750 long and 203 feet wide it's nearly long enough for two football fields laid end-to-end and is thirty feet wider than a football field.
The skylights in the domed roof are nice because they allow natural light. As we saw in some of the other pits it's quite easy to make this space feel dark. When the warriors were new they had a wood roof over their heads but of course over the years it collapsed and that may well be part of the reason some of the warriors were smashed to pieces. In between sections of soldiers are earth-rammed walls that were used to support the roof.
In 1974 some farmers were digging a well at one end of what is now Pit 1 and the bricks they discovered there were found to be some of the earliest-made bricks ever discovered in China. That discovery led to uncovering the soldiers.
The east end of the tomb has not yet been opened due to concerns over ways to preserve its artifacts. It may be many years before that ever happens.
I call this area the "hospital" as it's where many of the warriors were undergoing "re-constructive surgery" in the most literal sense. You can see that many have straps around them, holding various pieces together while the bonding agent takes hold. Some statues are wrapped in plastic wrap to keep all the tiny pieces in place.
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| Warriors Hospital |
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| The Plastic Wrap ward |
You may notice that many of the statues are missing their heads. That's because the heads were completely detachable from the bodies. This allowed the bodies to be hollow and thus be much lighter than they would be if the were solid. To a degree the heads could be interchangable as well. The faces all seem to be unique and I'll always wonder if these were the faces of those who dug the pits and/or sculpted the figures.
Archeologists continue to work on the figures and a number of them were busy at work during our visit. There's a roped-off section with additional lighting where these scientists worked on one of the world's largest 3-D jigsaw puzzles.
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| Caution: Scientists at work! |
We moved on to Pit 2 which was much darker since it did not have the natural lighting of Pit 1. But this pit had horses and chariot drivers though no chariots.
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| Horses and Charioteers |
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| Need a warrior? Assemble your own from these pieces! |
We learned that Pit 3 was the least-excavated of the three pits. They've used ground-penetrating radar to help determine what figures are underneath the soil and sand but excavation has not begun.
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| Pit 3's sandy soil |
But the Pit 3 building also housed some of the best-preserved figures behind glass, so we could see them up-close-and-personal, the way I had seen them in the traveling exhibit over 20 years before. There are four basic warrior figures including this Kneeling Archer. Though he no longer has a crossbow, his hands are positioned to hold it.
On this Kneeling Archer's back we can see just a little of the paint that once decorated his clothing.
The Standing Archer appears to be in the midst of drawing back his bow.
The double-layered flat hat, square-toed shoes and the tunic beneath his armor, extending to his knees help identify this as a Middle-Ranking Officer.
They've uncovered seven of these High-Ranking Officers, or Generals, in these pits. He has double-layered robes under his armor and a hat that ties beneath his chin. The shoes have square openings and the tips bend upwards.
Cavalrymen with Saddled Horses like these were also uncovered in Pit 2 along with the horses and charioteers.
Our last stop was the very crowded Museum of Bronze Work. There were lots of lovely items like this one but there were so many people I was starting to feel claustrophobic and had a hard time getting good photos because I kept getting jostled.
Like any good attraction/museum the path back towards our motorcoach was lined with shops and eateries - including Burger King! Fortunately the pathway was quite wide and we didn't feel harrassed by the folks calling for us to visit their shops.
This is the largest funerary site ever uncovered and it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. If you're ever anywhere close to Xi'an, you must go see this.
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