The Terracotta Warriors: After The Discovery

Want to know what it was like for the people who first discovered and excavated the Terracotta Warriors? This Chinese article (in English) will give you a good look into the lives of some of the men who made that fateful discovery in 1974, and the archaeologists who began the arduous work of uncovering the First Emperor’s massive army. For Yang Zhifa, his discovery has resulted in a job at the local gift shop, where he’s not a fan, apparently, of the media:

Wearing a traditional Chinese-style beige shirt and glasses, gray-haired Yang Zhifa busily signs books in a gift shop in the Museum of Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses, sometimes pausing to puff his long-stemmed pipe and blow a cloud of smoke. A huge photo showing U.S. President Bill Clinton meeting him on June 26, 1998, hangs on the wall behind him.

Yang was one of the farmers who first dug up fragments of the terra-cotta army when they were drilling a well in Xiyang Village of Lintong County, 35 kilometers east of Xi’an, capital of northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, 35 years ago.

The 72-year-old bid farewell to farming 14 years ago to work a nine-to-five routine. He now gets a salary of 1,000 yuan (147 U.S. dollars) a month from the gift shop for signing books of which he is not the author.

Yang silently immerses himself in the autographing. His signature is hard to read. If a tourist raises camera, he uses his pipe to tap the plate in front of him, which reads “no photo, no video.”

“I’m tired of signing and the noisy tourists, and I hate those tabloid reporters,” says Yang.

Read more about the people who discovered and excavated the Terracotta Warriors here. 

On the Road Again With the Terracotta Warriors

In mid-June, Discovery Times Square was proud to host a trio of prominent Chinese scholars to discuss the latest research on the tomb complex of China’s First Emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, and the Terracotta Warriors. Last week, we looked at the first presentation by Tian Jing, Deputy Director of the Museum of Qin Shihuangdi’s Tomb, on the incredible individuality of the Terracotta Warriors. This week, we’ll look at the talk by Zhao Jing, Deputy Director of the Xi’an Centre of Conservation and Restoration, on the highway system of the Qin Dynasty.

Although it may sound pretty boring, highways actually played a really important role in the First Emperor’s unification of China. Remember the tracks that covered wagons created as they moved across the prairies, or how cars in snowy highways follow the tracks of the cars ahead of them? Now imagine covered wagons, or cars, of varying widths. They’d create a haphazard system of ruts that could damage wheels and send drivers careening off the road. 

This is what China faced at the time of unification more than 2000 years ago: each of the seven states had chariots and wagons of different widths and heights, so, say, a Qin chariot may have trouble travelling on a Han road. Under the First Emperor, roads and chariot widths across all of China were standardized, enabling people to easily travel across the empire. Roads were carefully maintained, allowing powerful Qin chariots to move more quickly than ever to take on any threat to their new territories.

Archaeologists have not only discovered beautiful bronze chariots, like the two from the First Emperor’s tomb, above, as well as actual ruts preserved in 2,000-year-old roads that show the extraordinary highway system that was created, like the ancient road below. We’ve got a wonderful terracotta charioteer and his horse on display at Discovery Times Square—why don’t you come by and say hello?

A Scholarly Look at the Terracotta Warriors

Got plans for tonight? Join us at Discovery Times Square for an exclusive presentation by some of the leading scholars of the Terracotta Warriors. The event starts at 7:30 pm, and is absolutely free! If you can’t make it tonight, stay tuned for the latest information that will be revealed by the scholars- we’ll post it here!