when faced with the terracotta army, you’re supposed to be filled with a sense of awe and dread at the scale, the grandeur, the power… here was a man who spent more than some empires amassed in centuries on his own legacy, and then hid it. you’re supposed to be impressed by this immortal leader, this unifier of kingdoms, this great lord of men.
but what really caught my attention was not the great memorial to a dead emperor - it was a horse.
it was the fact that there was a terracotta horse, and on its mane, someone had taken the time to carefully carve small, delicate lines to make it look more like real hair.
the artisans slaved on this project - many didn’t survive, and some that did were rewarded with death. they knew the work was going to be buried, never to be seen again. yet someone, thousands of years ago, stood in front of a lump of clay, paused, and carefully added little lines, simply because… they felt they should.
it made me imagine…
“Chang. Why are you wasting time with that? We have 20 of these to do today!”
“It’s important,” the artisan says, hunched over his clay horse head, his eyes squinting in the candle light.
“Why?” says the other, rolling his eyes. “No one will see it. No one will care. No one will know!”
the artisan pauses, his small clay caked tool hovering in the air as he thinks.
“I’ll know,” he says softly, as he goes back to carefully etching the mane.
“And maybe,” he adds, whispering, “one day… so will someone else.”
@datinterry
#history #china #terracottaarmy
