HMNS Warriors

A couple of weeks ago I visited the Terra Cota Warriors exhibit. I was disappointed with the layout of the exhibit. It failed to impart the magnitude of the discovery - the illusion of scale was missing. A large wall panel featured a photo of the excavations, but you could not get far enough to get a feeling for the dimnension of the site.

The individual warriors however were very impressive. Each life size figure seemed to have it's own character and personality. Since viewing the warriors was the main point of the exhibit, it was still very worth while.

I learned... after the warriors were sculpted the craftsmen first painted a layer of lacquer on the pieces then colored them with mineral paint. In the process of unearthening the warriors in the initial excavations, the water in the lacquer layer evaporated causing the original paint to flake off. It wasn't until 1996 that new technolgies were able to prevent the flaking and discoloration of the pieces. The PEG2000 process covers the terra cota with a solvent that permeates into the lacquer and replaces the water. The HEMA process stabilizes the paint by electron beaming and is reported to work better on larger pieces.

Many warriors were severely damage by roof beams collapsing on them as a fire raged through the complex they stood gard beneath. Many of the excavation pits are just thousands of pieces of hundreds of warriors (and in some pits their horses).It takes many months for the 3-dimensional "warrior puzzle" to be sorted and glued back together.