Terracotta Army (3)
At this point in our tour of China, we hit one of the highlight sights of our trip - the famous Terracotta Army in Xian (Xi'an). [UNESCO World Heritage Site]. Built by Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China, this underground army lay undiscovered for over 2200 years.
Construction of this mausoleum began in 246 BCE and the project eventually involved 700,000 conscripted workers. As of the date I made this image, four main pits approximately 7 metres (23 ft) deep have been excavated. The main pit (Pit 1) shown in this photo Pit 1, is about the size of a football field (230 metres (750 ft) long and 62 metres (203 ft) wide). It contains the main army of more than 6,000 life-size clay (terracotta) figures (soldiers, horses, wagons). Originally they were all coloured, decorated and equipped with real weapons.
Most of the soldiers were reduced to rubble through vandalism and a large fire a few years after the death of Qin. Since the discovery of the site in 1974, China has been actively working to reconstruct and preserve the Terracotta Army (see several of the previously posted images in this set). This image shows some of the many reconstructed soldiers and a horse in Pit 1.
For more information:
Terracotta Army (3)
At this point in our tour of China, we hit one of the highlight sights of our trip - the famous Terracotta Army in Xian (Xi'an). [UNESCO World Heritage Site]. Built by Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China, this underground army lay undiscovered for over 2200 years.
Construction of this mausoleum began in 246 BCE and the project eventually involved 700,000 conscripted workers. As of the date I made this image, four main pits approximately 7 metres (23 ft) deep have been excavated. The main pit (Pit 1) shown in this photo Pit 1, is about the size of a football field (230 metres (750 ft) long and 62 metres (203 ft) wide). It contains the main army of more than 6,000 life-size clay (terracotta) figures (soldiers, horses, wagons). Originally they were all coloured, decorated and equipped with real weapons.
Most of the soldiers were reduced to rubble through vandalism and a large fire a few years after the death of Qin. Since the discovery of the site in 1974, China has been actively working to reconstruct and preserve the Terracotta Army (see several of the previously posted images in this set). This image shows some of the many reconstructed soldiers and a horse in Pit 1.
For more information: