Today, we went to see the Terracotta Warriors, outside of Xian, China. The Terricotta Warriors were constructed by Emperor Qin (pronouced chin), the first ruler in China to use the title ‘Emperor’ for himself. He unified all of the lands and tribes that is now China.
This clay world of warriors was built because Mr. Qin wanted to live as great an afterlife as his life when he was in power. He started work on his tomb at age 13 (you never know when you’re gonna die). It took 11 years to finish construction and was started during the year of 246 BC. In the time between 235 BC to 1974 AD, no one knew about the tomb. The people who discovered it were farmers in search of water, so they dug a well and when they dug it they found some mysterious clay warriors.
Emperor Qin enlisted the aid of hundreds of craftsmen to make his warriors to protect him in the afterlife. The warriors were made in pieces, with the head and body made separate then fired in a kiln, then assembled. Over 7,000 warriors horses and charriots can be found there today. Many of them are broken and missing arms or heads, but there are tons of full ones too. There were standing archers, kneeling archers, infantry with swords, cavalry with chariots and horses, generals, soldiers with spears.
Here are a few other facts I thought were interesting. The artists would sign their name on the Terracotta Warrior that they created and if the quailty was bad, the artist would be killed. When I heard that, I felt it was really unfair, because they were killing innocent people. It is not as if quality is the only thing you look for from an artist. Another sad fact is that the artists were actually slaves, which made me think Emperor Qin was power hungry and very mean and unfair. I also heard he killed generals if they were late for meetings. Because of how mean he was, in the end, he wasn’t as powerful and his dynasty was just him and only lasted about 20 years. After Emperor Qin, the Han Dynasty was responsible for inventing four important things, gun powder, paper, printing and the compass.
Overall, today was like a dream!!!!
Brookie…Once again, I learned so much from your blog about the Terracotta Warriors. I hadn’t known very much about them before reading your blog, so it was especially nice. What’s next? ‘Can’t wait.
We miss you and love you,
Nania, Bobba, and Tembo