I had the day off work today to visit the British Museum with W and her parents - with tickets for 1st Emperor of China exhibition. No cameras, phones, or anything of the like were allowed within the exhibition (in the spectacular “reading room” in the heart of the museum), so the photo above is an official one borrowed from another website.
There are lots of websites with the full story of the 1st Emperor of China’s warriors, but I will include a very brief version for those of you who may not know about it…
A farmer in the Xian province of China was digging a well in his field in 1974, and noticed the earth change as he dug. He carried on digging, and unearthed a head made of pottery - not unlike the photo above. Archeologists arrived to investigate, and discovered the beginnings of a site that is still being excavated today. They have found many thousands of soldiers, horses, livestock buried beneath Xian - an entire army that it is thought the Emperor had made to take with him into the afterlife.
As even, visit Wikipedia to find out more.
It is a tremendous privilege for the British Museum to display some of the soldiers - and the display was wonderfully presented. My only misgiving of the day was perhaps my usual bugbear - rude people. You might think that if you are stood in front of something, obviously reading a panel of information, that somebody might not walk right in front of you - let alone walk INTO you, mutter an apology, and then REMAIN there. This happened more than once.
Although I love visiting the British Museum, and looking with wonder at the wonderful items they exhibit (my favourites have to be the various statues from the Valley of the Kings in Egypt - and of course the Rosetta Stone), I always find myself feeling that almost the entire contents of the place belong elsewhere. W reminded me that if the objects and artifacts had not been collected and looked after, their countries of origin would almost certainly have either neglected or destroyed them.
I’ll post some of my photos from the day on Flickr soon. Watch this space.