Ghostly terracotta warriors revealed
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step – but what happens when the journey is 10,000 kilometres and your feet are made of clay?
You can find out this weekend when Te Papa opens the doors on the Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of Immortality exhibition.
Curator Rebecca Rice said the terracotta army, discovered in China in 1974, was amazing in terms of its scale but also in its artistry.
‘‘They’re sculpted in a way that has rendered them incredibly lifelike, you feel like they are portraits of individual people. The artistry of their form is breathtaking.
‘‘Then to think of the fact that everything in the exhibition is 2000 or 3000 years old, really gives you a sense of how sophisticated ancient Chinese culture was at a time when much of Europe was rather unsophisticated.’’
The eight life-size warriors might be the focus of the show but there was more to see with artefacts of ancient Chinese jewellery, weapons, coins and everyday objects from ancient China.
Rice said the 160 ‘‘exquisite treasures’’ were especially significant because of their age – at 2300 years old, the warriors dated back to before the lifetimes of Christ, Cleopatra or Julius Caesar.
She said our relationship to mortality was one of the key themes of the exhibition. ‘‘We’d like visitors to reflect on those themes of life, of death, of how we think about what’s going to happen to us in the future and how we respect those who have come before us.’’
Terracotta Warriors is the first international exhibition to be held in Te Papa’s new art gallery, Toi Art.
Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of Immortality opens tomorrow and runs until April 22, next year. Tickets cost $19.50 for adults and $9 for children.