History in a Pit

View more photos 

Just outside of the city of Xi'an is another of the great sights of  China.  After an hour long bus ride (for the low cost of 1 usd each!) we arrived at a place, where 33 years ago farmers digging a well discovered the biggest archaeological site of this century.  Two thousand years ago emperor Qin Shi Huang attempted to reconstruct his empire for the afterlife.  Historians say over 700 000 workers were hired for the project.  Their completion bonus was a tomb near the emperor's. Lucky!

This man spared no expense for his afterlife.  There are 3 excavation pits.  The first we visited consisted mostly of broken pieces of terracotta statues...not incredibly exciting.  The second pit had about 70 terracotta soldiers battle ready with horses.  The last pit was enormous!  It was 200m long and contained about SIX THOUSAND life-size (1.8m tall) warriors standing in formation.  It was unbelievable to see, row upon row of terracotta figures standing on guard.  Another amazing thing is that all the faces are expressive and ethnically diverse.  Even the clothes are detailed with buttons.  The weapons the warriors were supposed to have been holding were likely taken by grave robbers.

The emormous third pit with 6000 warriors

View more photos 

In the coming week we would witness an entirely different, less pompous method of preparing for the afterlife - Tibetan style. (see next entry).