Xi'an and the Terra Cotta Soldiers

April 21, 2012

The pollution in Xi’an is bad because they have lots of factories.  It is also where they have lots of military weapons factories. 

 

It’s hard to see very far because of the sfog (smog and fog).

This morning we were going to visit a factory for furniture and pottery but Pop Pop wasn’t feeling well so he stayed at the hotel and Noni and I went on the bus.

At the factory they make pottery soldiers just like the famous terra cotta warriors.

They had examples of the soldiers outside where there were steps for you to stand behind a pottery soldier with his head removed.  See below.

 

They showed us how they make the pottery soldiers.  First they take clay that they dig out of the ground and pound it into a mold.

 

Then they put the pieces together and let them dry.

 

Next they put them in a hot oven called a kiln.  They stay in the oven for one week.

 

When they are done they look like the statues in the ancient tomb that we are going to see.

Next we went into the pottery shop where they had terra cotta horses and soldiers in various sizes.  They were not the real terra cotta warriors and horses, of course, but they looked real and you could buy them if you wanted.  I bought a mini horse and a mini warrior in the shop.  The also had life-sized warriors and horses but they were too expensive and way too big to put in my suitcase.  Noni said, “No!”

They make a lot of them and sell them to tourists.

 

They also make Chinese furniture. People paint it colors.  They paint it with lacquer paint.  They put 30 layers of paint on one table.  It looks colorful and shiny when they are finished.

 

It is very expensive and some of the furniture carvings are made of jade.

 

We went to see the museum for terra cotta warriors. They are standing in battle formation. They said there were 8,099 life-sized pottery soldiers buried near the tomb of the Emperor Quin Shi Hu’ng.  He wanted a tomb that would have all of the things he needed to live in the afterlife.  He had 30,000 workers who made all the terra cotta soldiers and horses and chariots.

He had all of the soldiers buried in rooms in the tomb.  They were standing like they were ready to fight. When the tomb was finished the emperor had all of the 30,000 workers buried alive.  That is why nobody knew about the soldiers until they were found just about 25 years ago.

 

They were painted bright colors but when they opened the tomb the air that got into the tomb made all the paint fade away. They don’t know how many more soldiers and horses and chariots there might be in the tomb because they are trying to find a way to keep the colors from fading.  When they find a way they will open more rooms in the tomb.

They are still digging pieces out of the rooms they have already opened but they don’t know how many they will find.

 

Some of the soldiers are whole and others in pieces.  They have to put them together.

 

They find them in the dirt and have to carefully dig the pieces out and rebuild them.

 

There are not just soldiers but horses. They also had some chariots and horses made of metal.  

 

There were hucksters trying to sell us sets of soldiers and horses.  We told them “bu ya” and they went away.  Then one came back and kept offering cheaper prices. Finally we bought a set to make him go away.  Two minutes later the same man came back (or his clone) and tried to sell us more at even cheaper prices.  He got so desperate for us to buy them that we ended up buying another set to get rid of him once and for all.

Of course, another huckster was busy bothering the rest of our group. Every time we thought we had gotten rid of him he would come back.  He was equally annoying and even more tenacious.

The archeologists had put some of the best soldiers in glass cases so you could look at them really close.

 

For hundreds and hundreds of years nobody knew about the soldiers.  They knew where the emperor was buried but they didn’t know about the soldiers because he had killed everyone that knew about them. 

One day in the 1970s four farmers got together to dig a water well.  The farmer that went to the bottom of the well to dig more found something and brought it to the top to show the other farmers.  They called the archeologists and that is when they realized there was a big tomb under the farm where they were digging the well.   One of the farmers is still living. He was sitting at a table signing books telling the story of how they found the soldiers.  If you took his picture he wanted you to give him money.