Side Trip to China

5/17 Not quite all the way to china, just as far as San Francisco. We visited the Asian Art Museum where they were displaying some of the terracotta warriors that were unearthed in China  in 1974. These warriors stood guard near the tomb mound of the great Emperor Qin. It is said that the more than 6000 figures each have individual features. It is said that they used eight face molds but each one had additional clay added to change the features to each face. (I used a lot of “it is said” which translates to this is what is written on the displays) The display had only a few figures to represent the army that was uncovered, but among the display was a General, another high ranking officer as well as some

Calvary, foot soldiers, an archer and horses. This young emperor assumed the throne at age 13 and unified all of china by the age of 49 when he died. We are not saying that he was not ruthless in his approach, but he brought about a standard currency and weights and measures. Not bad for such a short lifespan. There were also some artifacts that came from the tomb of the emperor that would be for his enjoyment in the afterlife, one would imagine. Care for some tea with the emperor?

The display was coming to an end and we were glad we got to see the warriors before they were packed up and shipped to Houston, their only other destination in the US.

We continued our tour of the museum by going to the third floor to see other parts of Asia such as India and Japan. We think back to history and the knights of old with their armor and then we look at those terracotta warriors with their armor, now look at this Japanese warrior and his armor.



While interesting, it certainly brings home that we human beings do seem to like this thing called war. This is one of the finest museums we have ever visited and you can certainly spend a lot of time here. It depends on how much time you want to devote to any particular subject, but we were tired and did not make it to the second floor, we were just too pooped out.