Message from jchristensen

[Anonymous]

Coming to Southern California via the British Museum. . . .

Terracotta Warriors at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana only 5 minutes down the road from Disneyland. It's cheaper than a trip to Xi'an!

Want to get up close and personal to Qin's Warriors? Want to confirm that they each are different? Interested in the weapons they carried and see the crossbow up close? Want to know how the uniforms were sewn together, for infantry versus the officers? Interested in how a charioteer handled four Mongolian steeds into battle? Want to learn about how the terracotta warriors were assembled? Interested in the expansive size of Qin's tomb? Want to see what other items were in his tomb? Want to know what he did to unite China beyond connecting the pieces of walls already in existence?

This exhibit is spectacular!!! I have been to Xi'an, and was not this close to the warriors. It was easy to spend more than two hours wending my way through the exhibit, listening to the audio (included in the ticket price), reading the descriptors, and examining the items in the cases.

Even thought I knew about the painstaking process of putting the warriors together from shards, I could not pass by the case that detailed the process of excavation and the effort of putting the puzzle pieces together to form a warrior. Did you know that they have found fingerprints of the artisans on the insides of the shards?

I spent a lot of time examining the structure of the reins of the four horses that pulled the chariots. The reins are long gone, but the bits remain, and it has all been reconstructed. Not all the reins are in the hands of the charioteer! Furthermore, the right hand controls three horses and the left hand hold the reins of three horses--the middle two horses are controlled by both hands. It is intriguing. how the horses are connected to each other, the chariot and the charioteer.

There are 22 terracotta figures on display. The detail of the warriors' stances, uniforms, facial features, hair (down to the indivdual strands), caps, and body armor is breath-taking.

The website is http://www.bowers.org

Order tickets for the exhibit directly from the museum and go early to see their other galleries.

Unfortunately, the Teacher's Guide and educational information are not yet available. I did get a different home page for the museum when I accessed it from home than I did when I was working on line at school (LAUSD).

This presents a great counterbalance to the time spent on the Egyptian tombs.