Tomb of Qin Shi Huang

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Together with Raul I took the bus from Xi'an to the nearby Tomb of Qin Shi Huang. The place is known better as 'Terracotta Army' because that's the main attraction to see. The Tomb itself is a rather uninteresting green mound. That would be all if not some local farmer drilling a well in the 70's had discovered a huge underground army of terracotta soldiers. They symbolically stand guard at the tomb and are arranged in several formations around it. Before they were discovered wooden structures supported the ground above them. These structures had collapsed or had been distroyed in many places so that most of the soldiers had to be excavated and reassembled. Today the three main excavation sights have been roofed with large hangars and some money is collected at the entrance...
Besides the actual terracotta army the place features a 360 degree cinema with a film about the history of the tomb and a museum with more artefacts from the excavation sights. Here I read that a Chinese historian in his writings mentions the tomb, the terracotta army, and even a whole underground city with rivers of mercury. An imaginative interpretation of this source fascinated me already many years ago in the computer game 'The Riddle of Master Lu'. As far as reallity goes abnormal large quantities of mercury have been found in the soil surrounding th Tomb...

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Photos

Golden Buckle
These nicely handcrafted buckles belonged to one of the soldier's uniform.