Warriors of the Underground

The Army of Terracotta Warriors is an absolutely mind-boggling concept. Buried underground for over 2,000 years, this "army" was only uncovered 34 years when peasants working in a field drilled into one of the subterranean cavities, becoming the accidental discoverers of one of the biggest and most important finds of the 20th century.
The Army was made specifically for and under the orders of the first person to unify China, Emporer Qin Shi Huang, around 200 years BC. He was reputedly a bit of a paranoid control freak, responsible for the enslavement of hundreds of thousands of civilians to work on massive construction projects such as the Army, and burying 460 disapproving scholars alive because they criticised his fanatical decision to burn almost all written texts. All in all, not a very nice guy.. But powerful, nonetheless.
Qin Shi Huang's reasoning for the construction of the Army is still under debate, but most scholars today believe that he expected his rule to continue into the afterlife and he had the approximate 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots (all of which were made of wood and have since disappeared due to decay), 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, all life-sized, placed there to guard his tomb. And if a terracotta army wasn't enough, there are also acrobats, strongmen and musicians thrown in for entertainment too!
A very impressive and curious feature of these soldiers is that no two are alike; their facial features, their stances, even the markings on the soles of their shoes are all different, leading many to believe that each figure may have been based on a real soldier.
There are 3 pits of soldiers, the largest of which holds an impressive 6,000 figures in formation - it just has to be seen to be believed. Unfortunately, for Qin Shi Huang mostly, hardly anyone is interested in his actual (still unopened) mausoleum about 1.5km west of the warriors.
While we were here, we bumbed into some old friends.. Tom and Sandy (from our Intrepid group in Vietnam) were also visiting the Army with their new Intrepid China group. They were kind enough to let us crash their tour group for a bit.

Photos:

the first pit

up close with one of the warriors

the big one.. over 6,000 figures!

massive!

no two the same

a little maintenance..

she should have just brought a camera..