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PHOTO Preview: The Terra Cotta Warriors are Here!

November 19, 2009 by Svetlana

all photos: Chris Svetlik
all brief words: Svetlana
The Terra Cotta Warrior exhibit hype has been floating around DC for what seems like years. Everyone from press to restaurants (as varied as P.F. Chang’s to Mie n Yu to Ten Peh) to hotels is in on the game. I mean, is there anything I can say that has not been said before (including “YOU Really DO want to SEE THIS”)?
Didn’t think so.
But lets recap, the show, which opens today at National Geographic Museum is probably one of the most important archeological exhibits ever to enter this country (DC is the fourth and final city in the US to host the show). As lore (and history) has it: Nearly 2,000 years ago, thousands of life-size clay figures were buried in massive underground pits to accompany China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, into the afterlife. Their discovery outside the city of Xi’an in 1974 is one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century.

Now, 25 years later, this epic show is here. It explores not just the warriors themselves the whole underground kingdom built for emperor Qin (architectural history geeks will have a field day with all the excavated details, reproduced plans etc), culminating in a room where we get to see (some of) these soldiers in all their glory: each one a person of his own, with distinct faces, skills, body types-the fact that 2000 years a go someone sat and built thousands of these at such a level of skill and sophistication is beyond awe inspiring and delivers a whole new appreciation for the culture of ancient China.

The one complaint I had was that The National Geographic Museum is not as epic and large as one would expect from an institution hosting an exhibit of this magnitude but I wanted more (more warriors, more rooms, more, more, more), but that, I imagine, is a pretty good complaint to have, and after all it does mean a more intimate warrior time and smaller crowds which we all can appreciate.
Go to this show. The hype is deserved.

Ready for (so much) more info:
The exhibit which opens today has so many information dissemination platforms:

• Terracotta Warriors blog is here
• Facebook page is here
• Twittter is here
• Flickr pages are here (for the challenge) and here (for the exhibit)
• and the official website is here: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/terracottawarriors/

Bonus: Free Wednesdays

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