For my last day in Xi'an, I went with my family to the Terra-Cotta Warriors, which don't really need an explanation. However, to give a bit of background they were built by emperor Qin Shi Huang Di over 2000 years ago. Qin Shi Huang united China for the first time (in 221 BC I think) under the Qin and is also responsible for the building of the Great Wall. He started construction on the Terra-Cotta Warriors once he took the throne, at age 13, and the army took around four decades to complete. The warriors were put in his mausoleum, which spanned over 56 kilometers. Over 720,000 people helped in making this mausoleum, and many were later buried in the mausoleum so that none of the secrets would surface. The theory is that the emperor built this army because he thought that after death he would still be commanding China and would need this army. Therefore, people think that the mausoleum was made to replicate the world, just on a smaller scale.
The warriors were originally covered with a wooden roof, with some mats and earth above that. The warriors were all equipped with bronze weapons and painted, and no two warriors are identical. The mausoleum was accidentally discovered in 1974 by peasants who were digging a well, and archeologists have now uncovered three pits, with the main pit (pit 1) holding 6,000 soldiers and horses.
My guidebook said to start with the movie that talks about the history of the warriors and then move in reverse order from pit 3 to pit 2 and end with pit 1. That strategy was definitely the way to go, because pits 3 and 2 were a bit underwhelming, with parts of the mausoleum unearthed but very few intact warriors. Most of the pit had shards of the soldiers stuck to the floor or scattered around. However, pit 1 was amazing, and most of the following pictures are taken from pit 1. Pit 1 was in amazing condition, with the rows of soldiers restored to their original order.
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