Men made of Pottery

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Xi’an

So we tried to catch an overnight train to Xi’an not really bearing in mind that with over 1.3bn people, China has over a 7th of the world’s population and that means a good few people want the same train as you. So instead we paid a little extra and flew.

The city of Xi’an, was for me anyway, more of a culture shock than Beijing. It is not a major city and therefore is not so clean or modern and we definitely did not feel as safe there. The only reason this town has become a tourist destination is due to the discovery of the terracotta army quite recently in 1974 by a local farmer whilst he was digging a well. That is one lucky guy, he now a millionaire spends his days doing book signings and meeting VIPs including the likes of Bill Clinton.

Anyway, after (a lot) more digging they have now located 3 closely situated ‘pits’ of literally thousands of life-sized warrior statues of different rankings including infantry, cavalry, generals, archers and bodyguards. Each one with weapons and an individual face, no two warriors are alike. When they were found however they had been smashed into pieces and most of their weapons stolen. The story goes that, as was tradition back then, when the emperor dies his close servants and bodyguards went into the tomb with him, so in order to save his men the emperor created each one in terracotta to be entombed with him instead. It is assumed that the following emperor sent men to destroy the terracotta army and steal their weapons so that he was no longer protected in the afterlife. Apparently, after all the Chinese have no record of this in their history – which is probably the most interesting fact of all!

Our guide also told us that the warriors did used to be painted but that the colour fades within a few days of them being unearthed. Because of this they have re-buried many of the warriors until technology is there to unearth them safely (really does this not already exist?!) Also I can’t help but think, if they have already been unearthed once, then how disappointed would they be in another 10 years when they dig them up to discover they are ruined anyway? The mounds of soil you can see currently don’t exactly make for a Kodak moment either tbh.

That evening we decided to move on from Xi’an having only spent one night there (but having already killed 12 mosquitoes in our room) and we booked a second flight to our next location, Chengdu. We also managed to briefly meet up again with Nic from Beijing, sadly we probably won’t encounter him again on our travels but it is surprising how you end up bumping into the same people again and again doing a similar route!

Ok that’s enough of a history lesson for you.

Ness out.

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Photos

If I was a warrior...
I'd look ridiculous.