Now back to our 2007 trip to China!
From Beijing we flew west to Xi’an. The Terracotta Warriors were discovered by farmers near Xi’an in 1974. I’d looked forward to seeing this since I’d seen pictures in National Geographic. And it is awesome!
From Wikipedia – “the terracotta army is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210–209 BC.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army
Three humongous buildings cover the archeological digs.
Each life size statue is unique; different features and uniforms. The heads were made separate from the bodies, assembled and then painted. Most of the paint has flaked off. Wikipedia says the paint begins to flake as soon as it is exposed to air. It’s believed there are over 8,000 statues, many still unearthed.
Notice the warrior faces along the facade of this building.
A few warriors are behind glass in the museum.
Bronze horses & cart
The pictures hardly do it all justice.
The grounds are nicely planned to spread the crowds out too.
After our tour we had free time for a pot of tea.
Lots of pot and tea choices!
Pretty amazing sight!
Gracia's Travels - a photo-blog 
We visited Xian years ago, and it was then and remains, one of our favorite sights in the world. It’s hard to imagine the effort that went into the project, and what a delight that it was discovered in such a good state of preservation after all these years. ~James
I agree. The warriors are one of the top sites we’ve seen in our travels.