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terracotta warriors

C

cheezyflier

Charter Member
today i went to the Royal Ontario Museum here in toronto to see the terracotta warriors. they (of course) didn't have all of them there, but they did have 4 of the full sized warriors, plus a bunch of the smaller ones, as well as weapons, tools, stuff they ate on, cooked with, and things from every day life. it was really cool. at the original site there was 8,000 warriors, plus over 100 chariots and about 700 horses for the chariots, the cavalry and carriages. then, on top of all that, there is a huge garden with full sized swans, cranes, foxes, dogs and turtles and other stuff you might find in a garden. all of it created to accompany the Qin emperor into the afterlife. i heard some people remark that he must have been a very self-important person to go to such lengths for his burial tomb. me, i have a different perspective. i think about all the artisans that made the figures from clay, bronze and wood. the laborers who made the clay, gathered the raw materials, ran the kilns, the smelters and made the castings and carvings. do you know that each warrior has a different face? that they ALL show tiny details that mark their status in life and in the army such as their hair, their armor and shoes? their are also members of the court, judges, acrobats and entertainers, musicians, courtesans. well over 10,000 figures i guesstimate. how many men spent their entire careers working on a project that would blow people's minds over 2,000 years in the future? did they discuss it over dinner with their wives at the end of the day? did they tell their grandchildren about it? how many man-hours were involved? then i think of our current disposable culture. in 2 millennium, no one will marvel at the awesome thing we created. chances are, nothing noteworthy we have done will survive. i'm glad the Qin emperor assembled an army of skilled workers to make such a monumental art display. the world is a different place because of it.
 
I remember reading about them in National Geographic. That is something I would like to see. I need to check the tour schedule.
 
I have two small replicas of the terracotta soldiers in the bedroom, up on a couple corner shelves. I have always wanted to see the real ones.

OBIO
 
Actually showing them is a desecration as they are meant to be interred and to protect their emperor in his afterlife. It was a great masterpiece not to be seen...

I had the opportunity to see them in Xi'an in the late 80's. It's indeed something spectacular. The First emperor's tomb is still to be opened and may offer other dramatic (and nasty as it may be full of traps) surprises. The same guy had the Great wall built. The common man life was cheap in those times.

For the chinese movie amateurs, a nice movie about Qin Shi Huangdi (before he became an emperor) is Zhang Yimou's "Hero" .
 
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