Warriors Frozen in Time

Imagine being frozen in time for over 2200 years…buried with your emperor, unable to move, and not seeing the light of day until the middle of the disco era! This was the fate of the Terracotta Warriors!  This world-famous UNESCO World Heritage Site in Xi’an was the next stop in our China travels!

Where did they come from?

This army of frozen figures was created during the reign of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, who was the first Emperor of China. Construction of the emperor’s necropolis, along with the Terracotta Warriors began shortly after the emperor came into power around 246 BC – when he was only 13 years old.  The afterlife was very important to the Chinese, and the Emperor wanted to be sure that he had a full army for protection after he passed away.  Over the next 37 years, 720,000 people would work on creating the necropolis where the Emperor would eventually be buried, including the tomb and buildings in addition to the Terracotta Warriors.

There are variations of 4 soldier figures that were made:

The infantry soldiers are identified by having a single, square knot of hair on their heads.

The Archers also have one hair knot on their heads and are in a crouching position.

Officers were identified by a flat hair knot on their heads, and though they had armour, it was not as heavy as the soldiers.

The Generals were identified by a “butterfly” hair knot on their head, and their armour was very light.

There were also horses, chariots and riders.

How were they discovered?

In 1974 four farmers were digging a water well and accidentally discovered the warriors. This was towards the end of the Cultural Revolution in China, which had been set in motion by then-chairman Mao Zedong. Mao’s goal was to move China forward to become an industrialized nation, and as part of this he organized areas of rural China to produce a single product – steel – resulting in the redistribution of land from agriculture to steel production. Unfortunately, the steel produced was of low quality and largely unusable. With the reduction in land use for agriculture, soon there was not enough food to support the population and many people began to starve. This led to the Farmer’s Revolution. What does this have to do with the Terracotta Warriors? Well, with the discovery of the Warriors came weapons. You see, every soldier in the army had a real weapon, be it a spear or sword. As more Warriors were excavated, the weapons were stolen by farmers to be used in their revolution.

The Warriors Today

The discovery of the warriors in 1974 (around the same time as Jim Croche’s “Time in a Bottle” was on the music charts!) led to excavations of huge pits in the surrounding area. The first pit has approximately 6000 warriors in it; pit 2 has about 800 and pit 3 has about 200.

Each of the pits contained a virtual village where the clay figures “lived”, complete with buildings and stables. Over time the wooden roofs collapsed and many of the warriors were damaged.

The warriors in pit 1 were largely damaged and have been painstakingly reconstructed by Chinese archeologists.  As the statues are being reconstructed they are moved from the pit to another area where they can be worked on without damanging anything else.

Soldiers on parade!

Statues waiting for additional work to be completed.

Statues under repair.

Check out the details on this soldier.

A different soldier, different details.

Pits 2 and 3 are certainly not as grand as pit 1, but are still under excavation by Chinese archeologists.

Pit 2 – still under excavation.

Pit 3 – still under excavation

How were they made?

Each warrior looks different – no two warriors are the same. The body, arms, legs and head were created individually with clay, fired in a kiln and then assembled into the warrior. The details were then added with additional clay, such as the face details, hair, armour etc. I also learned that each of the statues are also signed by their sculptor. I thought at first that this was perhaps a way for the sculptor to get recognition, but it turns out it was so that was not the case. The Emperor inspected each of the statues and if he was not happy with the result, then punishment would be meted out. What was the punishment…death? Beheading? Being whipped publicly? No, it turns out that the ultimate punishment was to shave the sculptor’s mustache. Turns out that the ultimate humiliation to have one’s mustache removed. Personally, I’d take that over death!

We also visited a shop that manufactured scale copies of the warriors, everything from about 3″ high up to life sized. I thought it would be cool to buy one of the life sized ones and have it outside our front door to guard our home.

Hey, good enough for the Emperor, good enough for us, right?!

Makes a good Halloween costume, too!

Zoe on guard!

Mikhaila on guard!

The generals…

We wanted to see what it would be like to be one of the soldiers, so we were able to pose for a photo with them!  See, being Canadian has it’s benefits!