Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Terracotta Army

The story of the terracotta warriors are pretty well known, but I was surprised to learn that these ancient relics were discovered less that forty years ago after being buried well over two thousand years. A farmer was digging a well and came upon a terracotta head. Chinese archaeologists began to investigate ultimately finding many thousands of sculptures at the site. That farmer is still alive and spends his days at the museum signing books for tourists (yes, we bought one).

The scale is impressive as was the number of visitors viewing the ruins as archaeologists continue to (literally) put the pieces together. The picture below is of only one "pit"... there are three others, but they are smaller.

2 comments:

  1. Fascinating pictures, John. It's nice to get the sense of scale you captured in the second image. I don't believe I've ever seen a similar picture of the terracotta army.

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  2. This will never cease to amaze me. Great shot of the pit, too.

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