Yings at Terra Cotta Soldiers

So the terra cotta soldiers of Xi'an are a fascinating sight that are a great example of the incredible work that can be achieved by slaves ruled by ruthless dictators.  The soldiers themselves are all beautiful since each one is unique.  It was also speculated that before being buried each one was painted in extravagant colors.  The story behind the soldiers is sad.  

The first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, believed that he needed to bring all of these soldier and horses to his afterlife.  He also wanted to preserve his tomb so he had the 100,000 slaves who built all these buried alive also.

Yings with Uncle Jim

This was in location #3.  Hardly escavated at this point.

Location #2, a deeper area.  Our guide didn't tell us too much
about this one.

Four years after the emperor's death there was the 'farmer's revolt'.  The common people got pissed off that all the town's money was invested in the soldiers - and maybe that all their friends went missing... The farmers raided the tombs, knocked over the soldiers and then burnt the structures to the ground.

This is #3 again.  You can easily see the beams that held up
the dirt above the soldiers.  

I didn't quite get these bronze statues.  They looked out of
place in the museum so they were probably trucked in from
somewhere else.

This is location #1.  About the size of 2 football fields and filled
with soldiers.  The soldiers have been reconstructed by finding
the pieces and gluing them together. 

We kept talking about how we felt sorry for the archaeologists
who have to dig all these guys out with toothbrushes!