The Chinese Emperor in London

I can't believe how long I haven't posted here. Well, I guess I was pretty busy with my MA presentation and everything.

Anyway, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a ticket for the special exhibition at the British Museum in London, featuring terracotta warriors from the first Chinese Emperor. It was really difficult, since it is completely booked out and only 500 tickets per day are issued in the morning for this day. Since I'm not really a morning person this was not an option for me; but I was really really lucky: someone must have given back his ticket because there was a single ticket for last Wednesday which I bought online.

It was a small but impressive exhibition. After all China -for the first time- gave two of his famous terracotta warriors away.

copyright British Museum

The detail and accuracy with which this lifesize warriors were made is simply astonishing. Every figure has a different hairstyle, different sandals etc. Additionally various artefacts from his tomb were exhibited among them the bronze crane you can see here:

copyright British Museum

The only negative thing about the exhibiton was that Brit. Museum didn't say which statues were the originals and which were replicas, more or less suggesting that all statues were orignal ones. And it was too crowded, much to crowded. But still worth the 12 Pounds: after all the only other option would be to go to Xian to see them live. Well, maybe next year :)