they originally stood . Most of the army is still broken and buried , and will remain so until technology develops sufficiently so that removing them will not come at the cost of the deterioration of their beautiful painted colours .
Why are they broken ? After Emperor Qin died , there was an uprising . The pits were broken into . The thatched roofs and everything wooden – like the chariots and bows – were burned and every warrior , every symbol of the emperor ’ s power , every reminder of his war-driven unification of the five kingdoms that became China , was destroyed .
Those broken soldiers haunt me . I wonder who smashed them . Was it vandalism , part of the mass chaos of revolt ? Was it the workers enslaved for years to build them , coming back to vent their frustration and hatred of what they had been forced to do ? Did some soldiers come back and seek out the hated image of themselves in a role that they didn ’ t want immortalised ? Destroying the person they had become .
Outside Xi ’ an , there ’ s a factory where they make souvenir warrior figures and where they demonstrate the actual process by which the life-size figures were made . In the courtyard outside , there is one of those tourist photo opportunity devices where you stand on a step behind a headless life-size warrior and “ become ” a warrior for the camera . When one of the men in our tour group took his place for the photo , the resemblance was uncanny . With his moustache and dark colouring , he could have been a warrior reincarnated . In that moment I realised that each individual face of the Terracotta Army memorialises a real person , and that the reconstruction of his figure pays a kind of homage across the ages to his service and his sacrifice .
A typically Aussie spin ? Terracotta warrior meets ANZAC . Broken soldiers are a sad fixture in our lives these days : some physically damaged beyond repair ; some using a hollow bravado , alcohol and medications to hide the cracks . After sixty years some , like Paul Tibbets , the pilot who dropped the atomic bomb , say they go to their graves without regrets . After forty years some , like Vietnam conscript Barry Heard , in his book Well Done Those
Men ( Scribe , 2007 ), can reflect on their experiences and the price they paid , face the reunions , and catch up with fellow conscripts . These days from Afghanistan and Iraq , from East Timor and the Solomon Islands , they are coming home . We meet them at parties where they drink too much and tell endless stories that nobody wants to hear – again . Unlike their older counterparts who courteously fell apart in silence , they choose the socially less comfortable option of sharing their pain as rooms empty around them . I wonder what they would do if confronted with a lifesized terracotta replica of themselves .
Our guide told us that he has been coming to the museum for years yet he has never seen the archaeologists at work , although he occasionally sees the results of their efforts . There is a work area at the far end of one of the pits and the collection there of partly rebuilt figures and horses evolves over time . Out of sight , someone painstakingly collects the broken pieces and works to restore them to the truth and dignity of their real nature .
I like that image : working quietly in the background , with love and respect , honouring the truth of the soldiers . Not as broken , but as worthy of and destined for repair .
ISSUE 2 : JAN - MAR 2017 51