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After The Great Mosque, we drove to The Terracotta Army which is located in the Lingtong District of Xian.
They were made for Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China around 210 BC. He wanted them to guard his spirit and his empire in the afterlife. It's described as the eighth wonder of the world.
They're existence was not written down in the history books because later emperors ransacked the tomb, destroyed the soldiers and set light to the wooden roofs that were above them. They were only actually uncovered in 1974 by 3 local farmers who were digging a well.
We actually saw two of the farmers whilst we were there as they do book signings - all day, every day! The 3rd farmer died a few years ago - I wonder what he died of - maybe writer's cramp???
There are 3 main types of soldiers in the army. Infantrymen, kneeling archers and standing archers. It's estimated there are thousands of them in the pits yet to be uncovered but I reckon it's gonna take them years because most are broken so when they find them, they then have to rebuild them as well.
They've also found 40,000 bronze weapons in the pits along with evidence of them being covered in chrome?
Hold on a mo, these pits are over 2000 years old. The west didn't start covering things in chrome until the 1700's!
This is another government owned attraction for domestic and international tourists. I was really impressed with how much work has gone into making the site so attractive.
The granite and marble constructed buildings house all of the pits and the tourist buildings. They are modern and quite astounding and they can cater for 1000's every day. Its a very impressive set up.
The weirdest thing I saw on the day was the 'Seahorse Wine'. Check out the Terracotta Army photo album....
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