Terracotta Army

Terracotta Army

         

http://www.chinatourguide.com/xian/terracotta_warriors_details.html

 The Terracotta Army is a part of a massive burial tomb built for Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. There are over 8,000 life size statues of soldiers buried along with the emperor. The reason why this tomb was built was due to the fact that Emperor Qin wanted to live forever. He also spent a huge amount of resources building for himself the largest single tomb built to a leader in the history of the world. He felt this huge army would protect him and help him to keep his power in the afterlife. The soldiers of the Terracotta Army are life-size statues. All of them have different facial features! That means none of them looks alike. They also have different ranks and facial expressions such as calm or angry. The soldiers were even designed with different clothing and armor. Men from the cavalry are dressed different than foot soldiers. Some soldiers don't have armor. Perhaps they were supposed to be scouts or spies. 

In my opinion, Emperor Qin was able to "think big" as he knew he should build his tomb early and due to his selfishness, he wants hundreds or soldiers to accompany him even at death. It took years to build the tomb and the laborers were put to death to keep it a secret. However, he was too cruel to force the laborers to follow him to death. I guess Emperor Qin was too afraid of death and wanted to rule forever. The Terracotta Army was much of importance to China as it was a great attraction to be built. To me, it was so unbelievable to be able to build such a huge tomb. I can learn that Chinese believes in afterlife a lot and wants to have a good life even after death. The history has made a huge impact on Chinese even till today.

-Teo Lian Wei Vesy (20) 2E