Tombs

The soulless grey eyes of row after row of Terra Cotta Warriors would be more intimidating if the viewing portion was at ground level. And if there were fewer tourists. A woman in a leopard print and high heels starts crowding into my space. After snapping a few more photos, I yield, letting her slide into my former position at the north end of Pit 1, the largest of the three excavation pits at the site of Emperor Qin's tomb. More than three kilometers south of the excavation is the mound of earth under which the only Emperor of the Qin dynasty was buried. It is part of a larger complex that is more than fifty square kilometers and at one point contained a small city, the burial mound, and more than ten thousand model soldiers with weapons, armor and horses to guard the emperor in his eternal rest.

No one can ever say that Chinese dictators have ever done anything halfway.

In my mind, I imagine the laborers digging the pits for the fired clay statues, wondering at the madness of their emperor's massive expenditure. The brick foundation is laid, the statues installed with all their accoutrements, and the wooden crossbeams set down above them. It is night, and raining. Lightning strikes off in the distance and thunder rolls ominously as a captain or command officer jumps down into the pit with a torch, making the final inspection before the army is sealed in time, forever. He climbs out of the pit, nods to a sergeant, who nods to a work crew that seals the last stone entrance. Dirt and rocks are piled up and raked down so that the landscape appears undisturbed. The final workmen are slaves that will be murdered to ensure their silence and prevent grave robbers.

And so the warriors slept for centuries, until a dirt poor farmer digging a well discovered them in 1970. Now Emperor Qin's clay army stands exposed for the world – sometimes called the 8th Wonder of the Ancient World.