Wrong!

This is coolbert:

More terra Cotta.

It seems I am wrong about certain details of the terra cotta army of the Qin Emperor.

From my recent blog entry:

"And was found more or less INTACT!! For a science [archeology], discoveries of this magnitude are few and far in between. AND INTACT MAKES IT EVEN THAT MUCH MORE SIGNIFICANT. Normally, archaeologists have to work with fragments, and then INFER a lot of what they conclude. NOT SO with this discovery."

The terra cotta warriors were NOT found intact. I am wrong here.

From an informant who has just visited the terra cotta army exhibit, I receive this correction: [thanks to Jan]

"in 206 BC a rebel in the Qin Dynasty burnt the palace and the mausoleum. The construction of the pits was damaged during the fire. The collapsed roof pressed the terra-cotta warriors and horses into fragments. None of them was completed when unearthed. Mending the broken figures became a painstaking work for archaeological workers."

"So all warriors, horses, etc. available to the public are broken fragments that have been pieced together. That is what is so amazing! You can still see the result of the fire in the other two pits where the warriors are still in pieces and you can see the staging areas where they are being put together. What painstaking work! Since they discovered the warriors they have also discovered a process of applying a pigment on the newly unearthed figures to keep the original paint on the statues from fading and flaking after being brought to light."

Have been painstakingly put back together - - and the original paint protected! Some are put back together, re-assembled as they were originally, some are being put back together, and some still lay shattered, and will be left that way as part of the exhibit!

Still, all the same, amazing.

coolbert.