Dancing At Lunacy

This has got to be the world’s most impressive archaeology project!  Situated just outside the city of Xi’an (home to a mere 5 m people), this huge tomb was only discovered in the mid 1970s.  The sheer volume of work that was involved in cataloguing and recording all the pieces, and then putting them back together again and putting on display, is staggering, and what is even more amazing is that this is only the tip of the iceberg.  Each figure is individually carved, so they each have unique features.  The soldiers have their hair in a bun on the right, whilst the kneeling archers have their hair to the left, to make it easier to extract arrows.

My video starts in the factory where they make souvenir copy figures.

Sadly, both Roger and I were feeling a bit under the weather for this visit, and spent a lot of time sheltering from the harshly bright sunshine and elbowing crowds in the delightfully cool tea house, where some ginseng oolong eased my upset tum.

Filed under: China |