Phot-o' the Day: Pavilion 2 of the Terra Cotta Warriors Complex, Xi'an, China

The official name of the Terra Cotta Warriors complex outside Xi'an, China, is Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum. It dates back to the second century B.C. Pavilion 1 is the massive arena-sized building where you get that signature picture looking out at the hundreds, maybe thousands, of terra cotta soldiers lined up in formation guarding the emperor's tomb. It is impressive.

Pavilion 2 shows the complex more as a "work in progress." The soldiers are not lined up in military formation. It's more "milling" than military. Many, if not most, of the statues are headless. (The heads were detachable on all soldiers.) It's more of a "back stage" look.

Still impressive. Still cool.

Visited July 2018.

Terra Cotta Warriors

There were just so many of them.

When presented with the chance to travel to China, my top priority was visiting the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xi'an.  The Great Wall, the Forbidden City:  definitely worth seeing if I were here.  But getting to see the immensity of the Terra Cotta Warriors first hand was the biggest reason for wanting to visit.

The Terra Cotta Warriors did not disappoint.

The Terra Cotta Warriors were found in a farmer's field in 1974.  They date from 220 B.C., from the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty.

You may recall the "Qin" as being the original dynasty that unified China, hence its name was given to the whole of the country:  China.  (Q = "ch" phonetically here.)  Strangely enough, it is the Han Dynasty, who came next, who ruled from 200 B.C. to 200 A.D., who gave their name to the ethnic label most Chinese use to describe themselves:  "Han."

But the Han have nothing to do with the Terra Cotta Warriors.  So let's focus back on the Qin.

The site is located about an hour northeast of Xi'an.  And it is popular with the Chinese, especially school groups (of course).

There are three pavilions to visit.  Pavilion 1 is the enormous pavilion, the size of multiple football stadiums.  This is the one that you picture when you think of the Terra Cotta Warriors.

The crowds were thick.

And jockeying for position along the main photo wall, with the army facing you, was not for the polite.

It takes a while to take in the whole thing.  The army goes on and on and on and on.

Same photo, but landscape if you prefer:

This corner is where the farmer originally discovered the Terra Cotta Warriors, while digging a new well.  Just a couple of feet to the right and the terra cottas still would be undiscovered.

The walls between the rows of soldiers served an important purpose.  The army was buried, along with the emperor whose tomb they were there to guard.  The walls acted like a burial vault, so the "tomb" for these soldiers would not fall in on itself.

The Terra Cotta Warriors originally were painted.  However, the paint used seriously degrades after just one week of exposure to air and sunlight.  Thus, except for some bits of coloring on some of the soldiers, all of the army appears tastefully in plain terra cotta.

As you move along the sides of the main pavilion, you see the area where the restoration work is still "in progress."  These are nearly completed soldiers, clearly identifiable as such, but they are still missing vital parts.  A hand, a foot, or a head, for example.

Did I mention how hot and humid it was inside this pavilion?

Anyway, piecing together these figures from the fragments found must be a little like constructing a one trillion piece jigsaw puzzle.

The other two pavilions are much smaller.  Let's have a wander over to Pavilion 2.

The restoration work here is far less advanced.  The soldiers are far more fragmented.

I can see only one guy who has head on.

These statues were not lined up an impressive formation.  These were more akin to milling about at the hospital ward.

Pavilion 2 was nice and small.  Pavilion 3 was "baby bear" sized pavilion:  not too big, not too small.

But not a lot of Terra Cotta Warrior happening here.  This is more about professional archaeology being on display.

There is a lot of pain-staking work still being done 40-plus years after the discovery of this marvel.

But Pavilion 3 did have some displays with explanations.

This is a general.

You can tell by the shoes.

I believe this was a government official.

Soldier.  With horse.

Note the detachable tail on the horse.

Again, crowded, but the air conditioning was nicer here.

There was a final building, not quite a "pavilion," that housed two full chariots.  One was real and restored, the other was a recreation.

After more than two hours wandering around, it was time to head off for some lunch.  This statute has nothing to do with the Terra Cotta Warriors, but it was on the grounds and it is nice.

It kind of has a "Frederick Remington" feel to it.  And, finally, we conclude with the Emperor himself.

In statue.

Xi'an Arrival, a Visit to the Shaanxi History Museum

Terra Cotta Warriors. Some with heads.

I was whisked from Beijing to Xi'an, about 600 miles away, via China's high-speed rail.  This is reputedly the best and fastest in the world.  And while the breathing air looked a little difficult throughout much of that journey, Xi'an was a different world.  It is a clean, historic city.  Compared to most of the major cities in China, it qualifies as a small village of a mere six million people.

And all six million people from this small Chinese village were at the museum today.  The line to get in was long.  The museum itself was packed.  It's "high season," although there were few western tourists inside.  School groups visit during this time of year.

It is in a beautiful new building.

The exhibits are arranged in chronological order from a brief exhibit on Lantian Man (a rural cousin of the more famous "Peking Man," from about 500,000 years ago) through the time that the last emperor left his residence in Xi'an in the mid 1300s.
 

Xi'an was an imperial capital of China, on and off, from the Qin Dynasty (200s B.C., for whose first emperor the terra cotta warriors were created) until the mid 1300s, when the Ming Dynasty moved the capital to Nanjing.  (Actually, there was a small exhibit titled "1391-present," or something like that.  This museum is a history of Xi'an and Shaanxi province so once the capital was forever gone, who cared?)

Jade, I believe.

If this goose was not one of the major pieces on display, it should have been.

Terra cotta warriors in miniature:

Tomb guards:

This is a famous "seal," with more than a dozen sides.  It was designed by a man who married off his three daughters to three sons in the royal family.  One stamp with all the necessary seals kept everyone happy.

This camel is one of dozens of pieces throughout this area representing Xi'an's key role being on the famous "Silk Road," where Chinese products (porcelain, silk, manufactured goods, scientific knowledge) traveled west to Persia, Europe, the Byzantine, and North Africa, and western goods (fruits and vegetables) flowed east.

Below would appear to be more of a "porcelain army" than terra cotta, but technology was developing as we moved deeper into the museum.

I include this vase or water jug or whatever only because it was one of my few pictures from inside the museum that was not a blurry mess.

Finally, we conclude out museum tour with a reclining Mama Cass, in porcelain, from the 1300s or so.

Xi'an is a much more manageably-sized city.  It is not overwhelming.  It is rich in history, having been an imperial capital for the better part of 1500 years, and having been the terminus of the Silk Road.  I recommend that Shaanxi History Museum -- with an English-language guide please -- as an introduction to all this history going on around you.