The Buried Terracotta Army
HERE’S AN EERIE, SILENT PLACE IN THE MIDDLE
of China’s vastness where an ancient ruler once
buried 8,000 fully-sized, fully-armed clay
soldiers. Lifelike and battle-ready, they stayed
underground, unknown, for more than 2,200
years … emerging only yesterday like some spooky, longforgotten army to knock the socks of tourists like us.
Qin Shi Huang was that ruler’s name. Qin
(pronounced Chin – from which we get China) was the
country’s very first emperor, a capable but nasty piece of
work, who slaughtered his critics, turned a hotch-potch of
kingdoms into a single empire, and had these terracotta
warriors stationed rank-upon-rank in his massive tomb – to
protect him from even nastier
guys in the afterlife.
Some 200,000 workers
spent 36 years on this project.
And as a finishing touch, their
dearly beloved emperor had
them buried alive – to ensure
that his top-secret tomb
remained a top secret.
Nice, eh!
But wait: there’s a Part
#2 to the astonishing story of
these subterranean soldiers …
IT STARTED OUT
like any other early
spring day, in 1974,
in a small rural village. Three
peasant farmers, fearing a
drought, were trying to dig a
well near their little grove of
persimmon trees – when, from
way down deep, they dug up
some bits of terracotta and a jar
-like container. But that jar
turned out to be the head –
and those bits
turned
out to be the broken arms and legs – of what the locals
soon dubbed ‘the pottery man’.
To cut a long story short, the news quickly spread.
And before you could say “Qin Shi Huang!” the most earthshattering archaeological excavation of the 20th century
was underway. Several years later the full extent of this
discovery was known – the vast burial site of China’s first
emperor … three deep pits covering 20,000 square metres
… 8,000 clay warriors, archers and generals, each clad in
armour, each up to two metres tall, each face different …
plus horses, war chariots, the works!
It’s now known that Emperor Qin’s ‘top secret’ had
somehow leaked. And 22 centuries ago his well-guarded
tomb was raided, looted,
smashed and burned – then left
abandoned, forgotten, until
modern scientists (with hi-tech)
could begin a painstaking
reconstruction.
We’re not often left
speechless, but we were that
afternoon as we looked down
on row after row of imperial
soldiers, looming up out of the
mists of history. It’s been
dubbed ‘the eighth wonder of
the world’ – and if you see
nothing else in China, you’ve
gotta see this!
OH, BY THE WAY,
in the lobby of the
site’s information
centre, we met one of those
three peasant Chinese farmers.
No kidding! He’s getting on in
years, droopy moustache and
black-rimmed glasses. But he
autographed the book we
bought, and posed for a photo.
Kinda touristy? Yeah, of
course. But kinda special, too,
don’t you reckon?