Today was a full day trip around a number of Xian sights (Pagoda, Walls, Mosque), but was dominated by the main feature, the terracotta army.
So it goes like this
:
You are born into quite a decent family, and become emperor at the age of 13.
You decide that you want to unify China, which takes a bit of time, but you achieve that by age 38.
You embark on political and economic reform, and start a few large projects.
One happens to be quite a large wall the length of China.
Whilst this is all going on, you give some thought to life after death and at the age of 13 you start building a mausoleum and of course as part of that you build in some protection - over 8000 soldiers crafted in Terracotta, reflecting some of the troops that have enabled you to conquer your neighbours and unify China, and each unique.
You die age 49.
The next emperor struggles to control the country and there is a peasant's revolt which includes damaging (all but one) of the statues and stealing weapons. Over time the statues pits get overgrown and forgotten, until found by a local in 1974 - over two thousand years later. I guess that got a few archaeologists excited.
Now a combination of restored, to be restored and to be unearthed objects, it is an amazing sight. Something of such scale and at the same time such detail. I cant think of anything which really compares.
So it goes like this
:
You are born into quite a decent family, and become emperor at the age of 13.
You decide that you want to unify China, which takes a bit of time, but you achieve that by age 38.
You embark on political and economic reform, and start a few large projects.
One happens to be quite a large wall the length of China.
Whilst this is all going on, you give some thought to life after death and at the age of 13 you start building a mausoleum and of course as part of that you build in some protection - over 8000 soldiers crafted in Terracotta, reflecting some of the troops that have enabled you to conquer your neighbours and unify China, and each unique.
You die age 49.
The next emperor struggles to control the country and there is a peasant's revolt which includes damaging (all but one) of the statues and stealing weapons. Over time the statues pits get overgrown and forgotten, until found by a local in 1974 - over two thousand years later. I guess that got a few archaeologists excited.
Now a combination of restored, to be restored and to be unearthed objects, it is an amazing sight. Something of such scale and at the same time such detail. I cant think of anything which really compares.
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