Tombs and Warriors

Over 2000 years ago Xi'an was the centre of the Qin dynasty. It was the capital of unified China for many decades where many emperors ruled and is the location of Emperor Qin Shi Huang's tomb, better known as the Terracotta Warriors.

I really underestimated the size of this place. The general layout is a tomb at the centre with long narrow chambers surrounding the central tomb; these chambers are filled with items that the Emperor wanted to accompany him into the after life. The Terracotta Warriors museum encompasses 3 very large chambers (now pits) displayed in seperate buildings. There are currently 4 other pits that archeologists are working on too. The largest chamber, pit #1, is in a building the size of an airplane hanger!

Since Emperor Qin Shi Huang was the one to unify China he ruled during a time of war. It was pretty evident in the fact that he had 8000 warriors burried with him to match his 8000 palace guards in life. Each statues face was actually modelled after a real guard!

At the time that these were burried, all the soldiers were painted but once unearthed and exposed to the dry air in Xi'an it takes 15 seconds for the paint to loose its colour! The only actual evidence we saw was on the back of this one soldier:

This guy is also known as the "lucky soldier" because he was the only one that was found completely intact.

We also learned that to ensure that his tomb and all the chambers were kept a secret, they burried the artists (architects I guess) inside the chambers alive!

This place is massive and there was an incredible amount of work put into constructing it; It took 38 years to build! It was still in construction even after the Emperor died. Somewhere along the line though the work stopped and the knowledge of the tombs died until a farmer drilling a well in 1974 found them again. When they excavated they also found foundations from Tang dynasty era buildings on top of the chambers. Those people would have been living there for many years without a clue of what was below them.

This is also a very active archeological site however since it's also a tourist site, they only work at night.

The one downside to visiting this site though was the number of people. We learned that 7000 people visit the Warriors per day on average! So you can imagine what it's like to try to walk around and really soak it all in. Taking photos was a bit of a challenge and required some bumping people out of the way..

We also visited the tomb of Emperor Jingdi. It was a much smaller site but was worth the trip mainly to get away from the crowds. As you arrive you first notice a 50m high grassy hill, which is where the Emperor is entombed. Since Emperor Jingdi ruled in a time of peace, the chambers here are filled with 5000 figurines representing warriors, eunuchs and servants, and also domesticated animals. They used to all be colourfly painted with wodden arms and silk clothes (all rotted away now).

There were a few pits on display in the museum.

Side note: I never understood the purpose of a eunuch until now. As you may know, the Emperor had many concubines. So many that most of them never actually met the Emperor and lived a secluded life in dedicated palaces with nothing to do (sounds like a pretty boring life). So who better to guard the Emperors bored women then men who have no...urges? Pretty cruel but smart.

Because Xi'an was also the start and the end of the Silk Road there was a noticeable clash of middle eastern and chinese cultures. The one area that was worth visiting was the Muslim Quarters which are located inside the city walls. This was the best place to just walk around and sample food! Lamb kebabs, fried persimon cakes, "Chinese hamburgers" (stewed meat in a pita), noodles, sesame cakes, dumplings and the list goes on.

Lamb Kebabs

Chinese hamburger

Fried persimmon cake

Check out this video (click here) we took walking down the street. You really get a sense of how hectic it is!

After Xi'an our plan is to get into the mountains where we can get to smaller and more remote towns. Before heading out though we thought it would be a good time to indulge in a couple of Western things.

Starbucks double shot espresso!

Peanut butter for the road!

Click here for more photos.