Amateur Adventures #59: An underground army of clay
Hey fellow Steem adventurers.
Well its been a crazy busy week for me resulting in some steem free days, so thought it was time to share another travel adventure.
So after a short break looking at some of my favourite trips it's time to head back to China, and more specifically take a look at the Terracotta Warriors at Xian.
I am not one to pass up another opportunity to tick off a UNESCO World Heritage Site. and China is one country that you can tick off a whole lot - unfortunately for the most part they are not close together - but hey, I never let the minor details get in my way :)
After The Great Wall - these stone warriors are the biggest attraction for foreign tourists in China. It is certainly one of the greatest archaeological finds in history.
In 1974, Farmer Yang was digging a well to supply drinking water to the farm and discovered they were in fact standing on top of the Emperor Qin's underground clay army of 8000 warriors, with their horses and chariots. Ironically as the soul around the site is considered toxic people are actually discouraged from drinking the water.
The discovery of the site and Qin's tomb was one of the most significant finds in the world - Chairman Mao paid the Mr Yang 50 yuan - approx $7.50.
So why did the terracotta warriors lie undiscovered for centuries?
Well, Qin was something of a tyrant and had everyone who was involved in the building of the underground army killed. It took 38 years to build and in the end over 700, 000 people were killed to keep them from revealing the location. Some of these were buried alive, some were executed and his concubines - 3000 of them - were forced to commit suicide.
Qin wanted to rule his empire from the afterlife and so spent time amassing all the resources he would need in an underground empire. Interestingly no two figures are exactly the same. Each warrior is unique with it's own facial expressions, real weapons and uniforms according to rank
Excavation on the warriors themselves came to a halt for a while as the ones that had already been uncovered deteriorated since being exposed to the air. Once they were brightly coloured, but today are the stone coloured statues we recognise.
There are three pits on the site, with the most interesting being Pit 1 so make sure to take lots of photos here.
The mausoleum which houses Qin has not been opened due to the suspicion it is toxic. It's believed that Qin was buried in mercury, so until there is a safe way to open the tomb, Qin himself will remain undisturbed while the rest of the world waits.
I hope you enjoyed this adventure and it inspires you to get out and see this amazing rock we live on.
Until next time - Steem on in love and light -
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!steemitworldmap 34.3841197 lat 109.2763031 long Terracotta Warriors - D3SCR
This is something incredible
it really is quite amazing
Hiya, just swinging by to let you know that this post made the Honorable mentions list in today's Travel Digest!
This was the main attraction I felt like I missed during our trip to China, followed by Venice of the East. But I never knew that the history was so morbid. I can't imagine close to a million people being killed in relation to this amazing historic site.
yeah its scary isn't it! Some were simply because they worked on it and he didn't want anyone to know the location and others were because he thought they might be handy for him in his afterlife.. like his concubines!
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Spent an amazing half-day there several years ago while on a whirlwind bus tour. Thanks for bringing back those memories with your excellent story and photos - but you forgot to mention the main pavilion was designed by Canadians, based on the technology used to cover very large ice rink venues for hockey and curling! You are forgiven - Aussies wouldn't know such technology exists! Safe travels.