Terracotta Warriors

When we visited China in 2010 our primary aim was to spend time with our daughter who was living and teaching English there.  We thought about making the trip to Xi'an to see the fabled archeological discovery of the Terracotta Warriors.  Sarah had been there before so we opted not to do that.

An exhibit of the Terracotta Warriors of the First Emperor has been making the rounds. When I heard it was in Philadelphia I said let's go since we missed it when it was close by.

Last Friday we made the trip and it was well worth it.  It's at the Franklin Institute until early March.

There's so much written about this discovery and what the archeologists have learned that I'm not going to go into that history.  Google it for yourself if you are unfamiliar with the history of the First Emperor.  Let me share some of the sights.

If the figures had been made of wood there would have been nothing left of them.  They were buried with wooden crossbows and spears but all organic materials decay over time leaving only the inorganic materials and the impressions of the organic material.

The chariot below is a replica.  The original was smashed into thousands of pieces and took 8 years to reassemble.  It is too fragile to travel in the exhibit.

Excavation photograph.

These replicas were to give you a sense of scale and the color of the originals.

The originals were larger than life size.  My husband is 6'3".

The figure below was to show how over time the figure's paint disappeared.  It was a light show of sorts.

Only 10 original terra-cotta soldiers are included in the exhibit, but there are many more artifacts and exhibits explaining how the figures were made, and what has yet to be discovered.  There is also a movie "Mysteries of China" that is very informative.  I highly recommend seeing this exhibit if it comes near to you.