The Terracotta Warriors
Yesterday morning, the day after my last post, I went to see the Terracotta Warriors. They were absolutely unbelievable, and every bit of hype I had heard about them was understated. To get out to Xianyang, the city where the warriors stand I signed up for a tour through my youth hostel. I was supposed to get a visit to the Banpo neolithic village, and a visit to the Terracotta Army with an English Speaking Guide and minibus.
After I signed up the day before, the trip filled up and our minibus was full. But before we could make our first official stop at the Banpo neolithic village, we had to stop at the silk factory. What's this?, they have a showroom? - how convenient! (sarcasm). After what was clearly a tourist trap from which our driver was given a commision we were really on our way to see the sights of the day.
First up was the neolithic village. This was simply a museum built over an archeological site where a group of stone age Chinese had lived. Throughout the museum were pieces of pottery, boneware, and other simple tools which the villagers had used in their day. Also included were a variety of poor English translations such as "tool for digging holes in the ground" instead of "shovel".
The best worst part of the museum however, had to be the emphasis that the curators put on the "smartness and cleverness" of the Banpo villagers. The triangle patterns on their pottery "clearly shows that the Banpo villagers had a mastery of geometry".
I don't mean to sound like the museum wasn't a good stop, but come on - "mastered geometry"? Einstein mastered physics, Freud mastered phsychology, Euclid mastered geometry.....
After the museum we drove for another half hour before arriving at the main attraction - the Terracotta Warriors. Before we could see the actual pits where the statues were excavated and still stand, we were supposed to watch a movie about the Qing dynasty emporer who united China and subsequently built the Great Wall before being buried in his own massive tomb (guarded by the terracotta statues). My guide book highly recommended the movie, but it must have been for comic effect.
My first indication of what was to come was the circular movie theatre reminiscent of my early childhood family trips to disneyworld. It was one of those multiple screen things, sort of like an omnimax movie, but with 1960s technology. Once the movie started I half expected Charlton Heston to come riding over the hill in a Chariot with spiked wheels. While this never happened, it wouldn't have been terribly out of place - the whole movie was scripted much like the biblical thrillers that he is so famous for. Loads of extras, toiling in the slave camps, building monuments to their overlords.
Enough of that - there are three pits in the site of the Terracotta Warriors. First up was pit 1, which is the biggest and most famous pit. Here stand something like 6,000 life size unique statues. Originally, they all held weapons made of bronze which are now stored separately (out of view). The most amazing part of the pit is that while there are more statues than I could count, there are still many more that haven't been uncovered.
Pit 2 is similar to pit 1, but with many more horses. There are in fact 4 different types of horses including those carrying archers, pulling chariots, carrying spearmen etc etc. Unfortunately since pit 2 was discovered after pits 1 and 3, most of it has yet to be uncovered. Even once it is uncovered, most of the statues will have be reassembled since they were smashed when the wooden roof collapsed from rot.
Finally, pit 3, the smallest pit, is the command center of the army and features several generals who have different dress than the warriors in pit 1 and 2. They also have at least 1 chariot which was originally made of wood and has since disintegrated. It's easy to see how the riders are positioned to be holding the reins of the chariots. All in all the Terracotta Warriors were an unbelievable sight.
Today, I took the advice of a few Czech guys I met and took a bicycle ride around the Xi'an City walls. I walked around part of the city walls during my first day in town but I'm glad I went back. Once I rented the bicycle it took about 1.5 hours to the 10 km circuit at a pretty leisurely pace. Some of the areas of the wall were completely deserted, which was really cool.
Afterwards I went to lunch in the Muslim quarter where I had some mutton and bought a few more souvenirs before napping for the rest of the afternoon - not a bad day all in all!
Tomorrow I need to catch the bus to the airport in the morning for my flight to Guilin. From there I'll hitch a bus 60 km down to Yanshuo in the middle of the Li River Valley and home to some really mindblowing scenery. This is also where I will get to meet Wei, the hotel owner with 4.5 fingers! (oh boy!)
Time to find some dinner.
let my people go,
Andrew
After I signed up the day before, the trip filled up and our minibus was full. But before we could make our first official stop at the Banpo neolithic village, we had to stop at the silk factory. What's this?, they have a showroom? - how convenient! (sarcasm). After what was clearly a tourist trap from which our driver was given a commision we were really on our way to see the sights of the day.
First up was the neolithic village. This was simply a museum built over an archeological site where a group of stone age Chinese had lived. Throughout the museum were pieces of pottery, boneware, and other simple tools which the villagers had used in their day. Also included were a variety of poor English translations such as "tool for digging holes in the ground" instead of "shovel".
The best worst part of the museum however, had to be the emphasis that the curators put on the "smartness and cleverness" of the Banpo villagers. The triangle patterns on their pottery "clearly shows that the Banpo villagers had a mastery of geometry".
I don't mean to sound like the museum wasn't a good stop, but come on - "mastered geometry"? Einstein mastered physics, Freud mastered phsychology, Euclid mastered geometry.....
After the museum we drove for another half hour before arriving at the main attraction - the Terracotta Warriors. Before we could see the actual pits where the statues were excavated and still stand, we were supposed to watch a movie about the Qing dynasty emporer who united China and subsequently built the Great Wall before being buried in his own massive tomb (guarded by the terracotta statues). My guide book highly recommended the movie, but it must have been for comic effect.
My first indication of what was to come was the circular movie theatre reminiscent of my early childhood family trips to disneyworld. It was one of those multiple screen things, sort of like an omnimax movie, but with 1960s technology. Once the movie started I half expected Charlton Heston to come riding over the hill in a Chariot with spiked wheels. While this never happened, it wouldn't have been terribly out of place - the whole movie was scripted much like the biblical thrillers that he is so famous for. Loads of extras, toiling in the slave camps, building monuments to their overlords.
Enough of that - there are three pits in the site of the Terracotta Warriors. First up was pit 1, which is the biggest and most famous pit. Here stand something like 6,000 life size unique statues. Originally, they all held weapons made of bronze which are now stored separately (out of view). The most amazing part of the pit is that while there are more statues than I could count, there are still many more that haven't been uncovered.
Pit 2 is similar to pit 1, but with many more horses. There are in fact 4 different types of horses including those carrying archers, pulling chariots, carrying spearmen etc etc. Unfortunately since pit 2 was discovered after pits 1 and 3, most of it has yet to be uncovered. Even once it is uncovered, most of the statues will have be reassembled since they were smashed when the wooden roof collapsed from rot.
Finally, pit 3, the smallest pit, is the command center of the army and features several generals who have different dress than the warriors in pit 1 and 2. They also have at least 1 chariot which was originally made of wood and has since disintegrated. It's easy to see how the riders are positioned to be holding the reins of the chariots. All in all the Terracotta Warriors were an unbelievable sight.
Today, I took the advice of a few Czech guys I met and took a bicycle ride around the Xi'an City walls. I walked around part of the city walls during my first day in town but I'm glad I went back. Once I rented the bicycle it took about 1.5 hours to the 10 km circuit at a pretty leisurely pace. Some of the areas of the wall were completely deserted, which was really cool.
Afterwards I went to lunch in the Muslim quarter where I had some mutton and bought a few more souvenirs before napping for the rest of the afternoon - not a bad day all in all!
Tomorrow I need to catch the bus to the airport in the morning for my flight to Guilin. From there I'll hitch a bus 60 km down to Yanshuo in the middle of the Li River Valley and home to some really mindblowing scenery. This is also where I will get to meet Wei, the hotel owner with 4.5 fingers! (oh boy!)
Time to find some dinner.
let my people go,
Andrew
posted by Andrew at
5:54 AM
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