Yin chariots
moving in the dead world
Pit 2
contains fourteen hundred elite troops of
life scale, including cavalrymen,
infantry, horses and ninety wooden
chariots.
Yin soldiers
guarding the dead emperor
Six thousand
yin soldiers stand in formation in
Pit 1, guarding the city of the dead.
About thirty years ago, with
the help of the farmers in the outskirts of
China’s ancient capital city Xi’an, one
of the greatest archaeological discoveries of
the last century was made. A hidden palace
had been located and some of the terra-cotta
foot soldiers, cavalrymen, infantry stationed
in three underground wooden vaults were
unearthed. For more than two thousand years
this yin army faithfully
guarded the city of the dead that includes a
palace, an armoury, an imperial park, two
layers of city walls and a drainage system.
More than twenty years later,
in 1998, another major archaeological
breakthrough occurred around the hidden
palace. In a huge pit between the
inner and outer retaining walls, about a thousand
stone helmets, armours, horse reins, bronze
weapons were unearthed. The structures in the
pit are made of timber and earth, and at each
of the four corners there is a 14 metre long
ramped. Evidently the site was served as the
military supply depot.
It is believed that the workmen
made the terra-cotta soldiers according to
the real people who once were warriors of the
First Emperor, and that the overall
arrangement was carefully fashioned to
resemble the formation of the real battle
array. As the depot is situated closely
behind the troops, it is a clear sign that
the Qin’s army already used field depot to
support their military forces on the move.
But what make this latest
discovery most remarkable are those white
stone fragments scattering on the ground,
which now have been confirmed as the broken
pieces of the soldiers’ helmets. Previously
it was believed that helmets did not appear
in Chinese army until the Han Dynasty.
Since then another seven years
past and time entered September 2006. On a
Saturday afternoon, a third discovery was
made. This time the fellas who first spotted
something unusual are not farmers digging for
water, nor are archaeologists digging for
articles, but the security guards patrolling
the Pit No. 1.
At 2 pm, September 16, without
warning a previously unknown terra-cotta yin
soldier manifested into life and took the
position in the pit by storm.
The yang guards on the
ground were shocked. Clearly didn’t want
anything to upset the yin-yang
balance in the exhibition hall, they also
jumped into the pit pursuiting that alien
presence. Two minutes later, the
freshly strengthened yin formation was
broken up and the Emperor’s new warrior was
dismissed from the rank.
It turned out that this extra
foot soldier was not made of terra-cotta to
start with, then he did not belong to the yin
world, and finally, he was not even a
Chinese.
