The Terra-cotta Warriors
Hi, guys. Today I will talk about the Terra-cotta warriors. The Chinese word of Terra-cotta warriors is 兵马俑. It means Soldier-and-horse funerary statues. It’s a collection of Qin Shi Huang’s army’s statues. The statues are buried with the emperor in 210–209 BCE and whose purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife.
The Terra-cotta army holds about 8,000 soldiers and 130 chariots with 670 houses. Every warrior is about 175 to 190 cm high. The tomb which is holding the terra cotta warrior is one of the world biggest tombs people ever found. It’s a 6km sided square! There is no two warriors are the same, some has mustache, and some don’t. Some have bigger eyes, the others have smaller ones. Some are holding a spear, some are shooting a bow... There are 8 types of terra-cotta warriors which are terracotta sergeant, standing archer, kneeling archer, terra-cotta warriors, military officer, terra-cotta cavalry, driver of chariot, and general statue.
Now, I will go into the details. First, the terracotta sergeants. Usually, there are 20 sergeants on a chariot, standing right and left of the chariot. They wear long coat with amour outside, leg guard, hemp head cloth. The weapons on their hand are spears amraphels, swords and halberds which are long in size. According to the arms discovered around the chariot, Sergeants one left and right are all take long weapons, which means the division of work of the sergeants on each side are not so clear. Except for the terracotta sergeant, there are also military officer on the chariot.
The second type I am going to talk about is the standing archer. They were unearthed from the east part of pit 2. The standing archer together with kneeling ones form a crossbowmen battle formation. They wear light coat armor, bound the hair up, warped square opening shoes and tied with leather belt, which make they feel very flexible and comfortable. The gestures of them are just as the description in Wu Yue Chun Qiu: the left foot’s toe face forward while the left foot vertical to the left foot; the left hand hold the bow, and right hand like holding a baby. The gestures show that the shooting skills had reached a high level in Qin Dynasty. The gestures also were passed down inherited by later generations.
The third type which is the kneeling archer, are the same with the standing ones but they are kneeling.
The Terracotta Warriors are normal soldiers. The average height of them is 1.8 m. They are the main part of battle formation. Most terracotta soldiers are terracotta warriors. According to the coat they wearing, they could be divided into filed robe warrior and armor warrior. Filed robe warriors are standing at the out circle of the formation as they are light and flexible, while armor warriors standing in the center.
The Terracotta Cavalries are Unearthed from Pit 1 and Pit 2 and there are 116 terracotta cavalry. The dress of cavalry is obviously different from infantry and chariots soldiers. They wear circular cap, tight sleeves robe, tight mouth even pants, ankle boots, shot and small armors. One hand holds the rein and the other hand holds the bow. From the special dress, we can find that agility is a basic requirement of cavalry. The cavalry statues fond here are also the earliest material object of cavalry in ancient time.
As the words shown, the driver of chariot, is the driver of chariot.
Last but not the least, the general statues. There are a few of them you can find in the pit, less than 10 of them. The general could be divided in to two types: Robe General and Armor General. The common characters of them are that they all wear He Guan, they are all tall and strong, and their temperaments are conspicuous. The robe generals’ dress is simple but with a cockade decorated on the chest, while the armor general has 8 cockades on chest, back and shoulders. The decoration and dress show their level, identity, and majesty in the army.
Now you must be wondering how the terracotta warriors are made. (Actually not.) They are made in 6 parts, head, arms, torso, short tonic, armor, legs. After all these parts made, they will put them together and fire them in the firing place. At last, the color will be add on to the terracotta warrior. Thanks for reading, have a nice day!!