First we stopped at a replica factory to see how they were made and learn how lacquer furniture is made. We bought a small TerraCotta officer.
Then we headed to the museum. We watched a short low budget movie about the Quing dynasty's first emperor. He feared death and began working on his tomb at age 13. The tomb and clay soldiers were crafted by slaves from EuroAsia. They were not Chinese. Also they were not artists. They copied what one another looked like for the models.
A local farmer found the soldiers in 1974. He thought he happened to open the emperors tomb. This would bring him bad luck to him and his family. He did not know what he had done. Many people shunned him and would not befriend him. Today he has become very famous for finding the 8th wonder. He signs books about the TerraCotta Soldiers. He was paid 50yuan or $7.50 for finding this, but today he earns a salary for signing the books. He has met many famous people including Bill Clinton.
When we walked into the first pit it was amazing to see how big the museum building is, very long. All of the soldiers were found broken and the archeologists have worked very hard to put them back together and stand them up. They are learning as they go, when they first dig them up, they are painted very colorful. But as oxygen touches the 2000 year old pottery the paint disintegrates. So they have excavated 2000 soldiers, but they know there are over 8000 soldiers. They are working with German and Swiss scientist to come up with a way to preserve them batter before digging them up.
Only one soldier, an archer has been found intact. He was not broken. He also has color on his shoe, skirt and back panel. He is beautiful. It is just amazing to see something intact that is over 2000 years old. That is hard to comprehend.
I loved seeing the soldiers. Tonight we flew back to Beijing to fly out in the morning. Our flight is at 7:15am. We will be leaving before 5:00am. Ugh...then back to work for us working folks. Next stop, Okinawa!
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