Face the ranks of the Terracotta Army in Xi'an
A farmer's spade struck clay in the middle of a drought, 1974, where he expected to hit water instead. What came up, eventually, was an emperor's buried guard, built more than two thousand years ago and dug out of three pits one soldier at a time. Most visitors photograph the general rows and move on, missing that the tread pattern on each soldier's boot soles differs from the next, one of thousands of such variations across the ranks. The paint is gone now, worn to bare grey clay, but that small stubborn detail in the dust still argues against these faces being anonymous.
Practical
- Cost
- $15–25 for entry ticket
- Best time
- Spring or autumn, to avoid summer heat and winter cold
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time it takes
- Half a day, including travel from central Xi'an
- What people get wrong
- Visitors often photograph Pit 1 and leave, skipping Pit 2 and 3 and the bronze chariots museum, which show restoration work and finer detail. People also expect vivid colour and are surprised the original paint has almost entirely faded to bare clay.
- With
- A group