Qin Shi Huangdi’s Terracotta Army

The Terracotta Army is a true treasure of China. Almost every traveler visiting this country is eager to see this attraction with their own eyes. In general, the Terracotta Army is a burial of ceramic statues of warriors and horses. A total of 8,099 statues have been found. At first, archaeologists assumed that there were no more than 6,000 warriors in this burial, but then new finds were discovered.

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Opening hours: daily. 8.00-17.00

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General Information

The Terracotta Army, made as an imitation of an authentic army of the time, is housed in three crypts. It consists of warriors of various ranks and branches of the army, as well as horses. For its manufacture, it is true, templates were used (if we do not count individually designed faces), but their variety is great. There are soldiers without armor in knee-length jackets and there are soldiers in plate armor of various types. Most of the warriors have light hats on their heads with their hair pulled up in a knot, while others wear folded or double-toothed headdresses. Archers crouch on one knee or stand at full height. The horses are usually for harnesses of four; however, the war wagons were made of wood and burned, leaving only imprints in the clay. In addition, there are cavalry horses here as well. The boots of the warriors are also of various shapes; the warriors stand on a stand that gives them stability. All the statues were once painted. The bronze weapons originally attached to them were mostly scattered when the tomb was ravaged, but some of them have survived to this day. The bottoms of the crypts were paved; the intermediate adobe walls carried a wooden roof, covered with excavated earth on top.

Only a small part of the statues has been removed to the surface and restored. Things are moving slowly. First, it is difficult to combine the scattered far apart debris, as their edges are indistinct. Secondly, it is difficult to install the statues: often the debris can not withstand the weight load, so it is necessary to build an internal support corset. And thirdly, the restorers have learned from the mistakes of previous years, when excavations were carried out too quickly and no attention was paid, in particular, to the conservation of paint residues. They stick to the ground surrounding the figures. It is only possible to re-fix them on the surface of the statues through a very laborious process.

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Предназначение

The Terracotta Army was created to serve Emperor Qin Shi Huang in the afterlife. The emperor had bothered in advance to build himself a proper tomb and ensure a luxurious afterlife. This emperor was very powerful, it was he who was able to unite the disparate Chinese kingdoms into one powerful state. Under him, all parts of the Chinese Wall finally began to protect one country.

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Qin Shi Huang was a very overbearing Emperor, and this is not surprising, because then he would not have been able to unite all of China. However, the Emperor in his old age seriously considered how he could live longer, and ideally forever. He searched for the elixir of immortality, equipped expeditions to obtain knowledge in this area. He even used mercury, as he believed it could prolong his life.

But apparently the emperor still did not fully believe that he would be able to discover the elixir of immortality, so he decided to build a huge necropolis, his tomb, equipped with everything he would need in the afterlife. Even there, he intended to be a conqueror and assert his power in that world. In order to win victories in the afterlife, he needed an army. However, at the end of his life, the emperor logically realized that if you kill several thousand warriors at once, the people will revolt, and there will be no one to defend the country, so he did not take this step, and decided to create a terracotta army.

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But do not think that this was done out of the goodness of his heart. Although Qin Shi Huang kept his warriors alive, his concubines and several thousand laborers with their families were killed with him. The terracotta statues, on the other hand, became exact replicas of living soldiers. Each ceramic statue has its own facial features, its facial expressions, character. Just this is what surprises scientists, because it was believed that with the technology of the time to create something like this was impossible.

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History

No one thought that something like this could be found in Xi’an province. This burial site was discovered by chance. An ordinary peasant was doing excavation work in this place, and then suddenly came across a statue of a warrior. After that, the discovery was reported and archeologists arrived here, who only eventually realized the significance of the event. The Terracotta Army was discovered in 1974, but archaeological work is still ongoing.

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The main work took place between 1978-1984, the second period of excavation came between 1985-1986. And only in 2009 began the third phase. For a long time, archaeologists did not dare to continue work, because of the imperfection of tools and technology were afraid of damage to valuable exhibits. In addition, according to legends, Emperor Qin Shihuangdi ordered to build a very large-scale necropolis, in which the rivers should even flow. And these rivers were filled not with water, but with mercury. In this case, if archaeologists without proper preparation discover something like this, people could be hurt or the man-made rivers themselves could be disrupted.

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Crypt 1

Crypt 1, covered with a vaulted roof like those found in train stations, is 230 meters long and 62 meters wide; it is the largest. Here the best idea of the original arrangement of the statues can be obtained; nine columns of infantry can be seen, with a vanguard of three echelons, and flank defenses on the left and right. On the intermediate walls can be seen the imprints of the wooden beams that once carried the ceiling.

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Crypts 2 and 3

Crypt 2 is shaped like an inverted “G” and is located north of Crypt 1. It contains about ninety horse harnesses-four-rocks, and again infantry (archers) and cavalry, with the riders standing in front of their horses. The excavation of the Terracotta Army is particularly well observed here. Perhaps most interesting is the exhibition area in the north of the hall, where the figures, weapons, etc. can be seen up close. Crypt 3, the smallest, is to the west of crypt 2. It is horseshoe-shaped, and represents the command staff of the army.

Museum

The large building to the right of the entrance displays some of the items found during excavations in the burial mound. The most remarkable exhibits are two bronze harness quadrupeds – a covered carriage and an open war chariot with a canopy. Both were broken under the pressure of the earth’s strata and then reassembled from more than a thousand pieces. Admittedly, the exceptional abundance of detail – ornamentation, weapons, bridles, chains, a food vessel – is only revealed in the illustrated volumes devoted to the Terracotta Army and specifically to the bronze chariots.

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Cinema and shopping halls

To the south of crypt 1 is a panoramic movie theater, in which a short film about the emergence and later oblivion of the Terracotta Army is continuously repeated. The creation of the army, the subsequent mutiny and ruin are vividly and dramatically depicted in the genre of feature film. To the west of the crypts, the service center houses a restaurant and trading rooms. There every day for several hours sits a rather aged peasant, who at one time started the drilling of the well and to whom we owe the discovery of the clay army, and autographs books.

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Mysteries

The Terracotta Army has posed several riddles for scientists. Most of all, they are interested in where and how the statues were created. It is already known that they all came from different parts of China, only the horses, which weigh over 200 kilograms, were created near the tomb. This territorial distribution means that in each region there must have been special kilns of large size in which the firing of the statues could have been done. But no such structures were found. In addition, there was the problem of transportation of statues, it is still not exactly clear how the ancient Chinese coped with it.

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Another question that interests scientists is how the weapons that the terracotta army warriors have can still be so sharp? Each soldier wields a different weapon. It can be a spear, a crossbow or a sword. All of these weapons can be used in battle today, if the emperor calls his army again.