Mike Devane's Blog Post

After a six and a half hour train ride we began our final weekend in China with a visit to the historic Xi'an city. The current capital of Shanxi province was also the capital city of China during the Ming dynasty. Compared to the other four "great ancient capitals of China" Xi'an is by far the oldest, and the most valuable. Due to the fact that Xi’an is where the beginning of the Silk Road was located it greatly impacted Chinese history and economics due to its benefits in trade and cultural melding often associated with the Silk Road. 

Our first stop was the Ming Dynasty city wall which is the most well preserved city wall in all of China. We rented bikes and rode around the nine mile perimeter of the wall and were able to see all the amazing architecture and detail that went into building this wall, and the towers perched atop it. The views from the top of the wall were also breathtaking because we could see the comparison between ancient and modern China, due to the fact that just outside the walls of ancient Xi'an is a large bustling city. After this we drove to a restaurant where we ate many traditional Chinese food before going to the hotel.

The next day, which was our last day in Xi'an we were able to see the Terra cotta army which is also the tomb of one of the emperors of the Qin dynasty, Qin shi Huang. The sculptures are so detailed that each statue has a different hair style based on their rank which was common in the ancient Chinese military. The hairstyles help to distinguish between those who were soldiers, those who were captains, and those who were generals. Also we could see on the statues of the kneeling archers that the artists even took the time to design treads for the bottom of the shoes on the statues. It took 700,000 men to sculpt and shape the thousands of soldiers who were believed to guard the emperor in the afterlife. Another obstacle for intruders was the river of mercury which flows through the tomb and is hazardous to unsuspecting intruders. Although, after the Qin dynasty fell people destroyed many of the soldiers to make a statement against their rule. The soldiers were discovered in 1974 originally by local farmers attempting to dig a well. After accidentally unearthing one of the most impressive displays in history archeologists began unearthing the vast army of terra cotta soldiers and are to this day attempting to restore and maintain the beauty of the legacy of emperor Qin Shi Huang.