Terra Cotta Awesomeness

Today I had the pleasure of seeing the famous Terra Cotta army of Emperor Qin, known as China's first Emperor. Since I paid an obscene amount of money for my college education, I had the privilege of attending a luncheon where Dean Micheal Drompp of Rhodes College's Asian Studies department spoke briefly about the history of the man. He is known not only for standardising language, writing, roads, currency, and weights and measures, but for unending cruelty and strictness in enforcement of the law. Dr. Drompp shared a story that Qin once fell asleep and as it grew cold, the Keeper of the Imperial Hat covered him with the Imperial Cloak. When he awoke, he asked who had covered him and he was told the Keeper of the Imperial Hat; he punished the Keeper of the Hat for overstepping his bounds and the Keeper of the Imperial Cloak for not fulfilling his duties.

Terrified of death, Qin spent his life trying to avoid it, but finally decided to build a mausoleum that would echo his greatness in life. There are a suspected 7,000 soldiers and so far 1,000 of them have been unearthed since the discovery of the first one in 1973, and the High Museum is showing around 10-13 statues from the outer ranks of the mausoleum (I tried to find a schematic of the site, but am unable to-- I'll continue to look and will update with a link when I find one) along with a collection of artifacts from the era.

The collection itself is incredibly interesting, and the audio tour that goes along with it extremely informative. Curators from the British Museum and the Terra Cotta Warriors Museum (where they live in China when not on tour) describe the rise of Qin, the different forms of money seen in display cases (pre- and post-Qin) and the weapons-- impressively preserved bronze pieces from arrows to spear tips. Stone weights and new coins follow them as examples of what Qin did for the empire. Jumping back, briefly, the exhibit introduces itself with the kneeling archer (seen to the left) which was really quite exquisite. The High's curators set up the exhibition so the warriors were not behind glass, but instead on platforms with a knee-high barrier surrounding it; this made viewing easier as there was no inch-thick glass to distort light and take away from the amazing detail on each and every one of these statues.

The detail on these soldiers is exactly what makes them so impressive. The High Museum's marketing did them a great disservice in making the exhibit appear to be a large collection of soldiers, putting out advertising that depicted a large portion of the 1,000 soldiers. People show up, see that there are only around 10 soldiers and feel like they've been gypped. The audio tour does quite a bit to emphasize the detail on each individual soldier, a different item number for each one, but anyone who doesn't realize the audio tour is free or doesn't care to take it (the majority of fellow visitors had the headsets, but there were quite a few who did not) isn't going to get that. I think that if there were a large number of soldiers, the thing that makes this exhibit so unique would have been completely lost on the public. Perhaps it is because of the marketing bungle, but everyone seemed to be really enthralled with what they saw so I think that the majority of people are overlooking it.

The final two rooms include a selection of different soldiers and one of the horses with his bridle and saddle (seen to the right). Bronze replicas of original chariots and four are at the rear of the larger room behind the soldiers as the originals were too delicate to travel; the antechambers to that room include a mockup of the workshop with workers building both a warrior and a horse from bottom up, and musicians playing to dancing cranes on a river bank (though there is an argument that the statues may also have been fishing since there is no evidence left of what they were holding in their hands-- picture of one seen below).


In all, I highly recommend the exhibit. If you don't have the fortune of an Asian Studies professor, the audio tour will more than suffice and IS included in the price of admission. Leave behind your impressions from marketing, and instead focus in the incredible detail in each and every statue. I would not suggest less than an hour to go through the exhibit, and would take more time if you have it so that you can be sure to really look at each piece and enjoy the entire collection.


All photos are from the TimesOnline UK site artle "Terracotta army at the British Museum."

Twofer

Spent the day catching up on laundry, have my delicates (knit dresses, nice shirts, etc) to do tomorrow since they have to hang up to dry, but just about everything else is done! Yay!

I'm almost done with Season 1 of Bones, and I'm not really sure why I didn't like it in the first place. I absolutely love it now, especially the episode "The Man in The Wall". It's about the rap industry and I find that geeks + the rap industry (at least in TV) equals hilarity and awesomeness. Don't believe me? Check out this one or the NUMB3RS episode with Three Six Mafia-- both are classics, and actually give the rap industry its due through the geeky main characters.

I did pick out a china pattern, I went with the Mikasa Cameo Platinum-- I thought the little details added enough cuteness without being overly done. I liked the Parchment one E liked, but it was just a bit too much, I think. With a simple design, it won't take away from whatever I'm serving, but it will be enough to stand out on its own. Plus I don't have to be paranoid about whether or not the raised dots will come off... I also picked out good silverware, Oneida "Jackson" which is quite reasonably priced for the quality you get with Oneida (fun fact, they were originally a small company of silversmiths out of Pennsylvania, I believe Quaker) and they've got a little bit of the curve from the plates.

Work was slow tonight, only one table, but it was a really fun couple from the neighborhood who came in and had a couple bottles of wine and talked to us for like three and a half hours. We talked about airline stuff, dentists, cars, silly things we did when we were younger, living in Atlanta, living other places, college, just about anything you can think of. I don't expect this week to be too busy, since Valentine's Day is Saturday. I brought Jon the cards I did up for Amy (one from him and one from Carter), and though I forgot to take pictures of them, they'd be easily re-doable. I need to remember to send Valerie's card tomorrow-- though at this point it'll be late, so I might just wait and let Jeremy sign it for himself!

That's about all for now, I'm going to pop in some Six Feet Under (since I have seriously under-used my Netflix potential for the month) and keep plugging through my room. I won't have my chest of drawers or vanity back up for another month or so because I'm going to sand them down and re-paint them before I bring them up. I haven't decided what color I'm going to use since I'd like to keep them around for my kids and obviously I don't know if I'll have girls or boys! I'd really like to do red, but that's a given, so if anyone has suggestions other than red let me know and I'll gladly post pictures of the finished product.

Yeah, I know

So, here's my attempt at some better news since the last post was kind of depressing...

Yesterday, I went to go to Em's, but my car's doing something new so I came back home and took mom to David's to help him get his scooter over here, and went from there. We went to Macy's and looked at some china patterns and narrowed it down to about seven patterns (which I have now put down to 4).

Mikasa Cameo Platinum
Mikasa Parchment (I wish I wanted gold on my table, I love this version)
Lenox Opal Innocence
Lenox Lace Cotoure

I haven't gone through and done my pros/cons on all of them yet-- I like simple and clean and classic, something my daughter will like, or that my daughter-in-law won't hold with two fingers when I pass it on! I didn't used to think I wanted formal china, but I remember having nice dishes for holidays and special occasions and I really liked that. Plus, Macy's keeps putting this stuff on major clearance!

After the china hunt (and the turning up of our noses at "designer" china-- I love Kate Spade, but stick to purses, not china) we headed over to the American Girl store which was totally exciting. I'd never been in the store before! I found out a couple months ago that my Samantha is being discontinued, but I found out last night that Pleasant Company apparently hasn't owned AG in quite some time, so my dolls really are collectibles. Addy also is, and would be moreso if they put serial numbers on them as she was in the first batch ever made. I pulled out my stuff and found that there were a few things missing, but overall everything's in good condition and the dolls still look fantastic. I'm putting in for some of Sam's accessories (they're on backorder and being discontinued, so there's no guarantee I'll get them) and I'm going to start building up my Addy collection since she's my other one. I'm dying to get Analia the Josefina doll (since her genetic father was, correct me if I'm wrong, Hispanic) but obviously I'll have to wait a few years for that. We'll put something aside in the special "spoil the niece fund" since Aunt Meg is likely to be worse than most... I'm also eyeing some cute little rompers for Krystal since Cy's due in March and even though they won't need them for a while, they don't have many neutral colored things past about 8 months (they already have a little girl, Gwennie) and could use some. Good news? They're on a military base and Target should ship them, and if not, then I'll just ship it from here since I won't have to pay "real" Japan postage!

After AG, we ran through Target where I got a pepper mix and a pot in which to plant said pepper mix-- I'm extremely excited, I've wanted to do a garden for a while, and though I can't plant anything in the ground here, there's a porch with a railing wide enough to place small pots on, so I can at least have a potted garden. I won't know until they've sprouted, but it's a mixture of Big Red Cayenne Hybrid, Anaheim Chili, Ancho, BIker Billy Hybrid and Hungarian Wax seeds. The rest of the night was watching Bones season 3, so tonight I'm starting from the beginning and I'm about halfway through the second disc of season 1.

Anyway, that's about all. Hopefully, my peppers will sprout and I can put up some pictures of them. Jeremy's hopefully on the way to feeling better and will be on his way up this weekend! Yay! More soon, I'm sure!