Xi’an in Pictures.

Xi’an was a pretty cool place. Why? The Terracotta Warriors. I’ve wanted to see them for ages and I finally got to! Yay!

The Terracotta Warriors were discovered in 1974 by a farmer digging around in his field.

Side note: The farmer that discovered the soldiers now sits in a building next to the Terracotta museum and signs books. I saw the dude. He looked bored as hell. Some of the others on my tour thought that he must be pissed he’s forced to sit there day in and day out…

Personally, I think that they have 3 or 4 guys who look alike to play “The Farmer” so the original guy doesn’t have to sit there 10 hrs a day, 7 days a week.

Anyways…In case you have no interest in history or cool things to see in other parts of the world and haven’t heard of the warriors here’s a brief summary:

The Terracotta Army is a collection of clay statues of warriors and horses that were built to protect the Emperor after his death around 210 B.C. 

Current estimates suggest that there are over 8,000 soldiers. The coolest thing? Each soldier has a different face. No two ‘people’ are the same.  Over 97% of the army remains buried underground, so you can only see the small portion that has been excavated. I could really go on and on about them, so if you’re interested, look them up. It’s pretty cool.

But it was still very cool. It brought me right back to my childhood dreams of being an archaeologist.