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| When the pits were opened it was found that large sections had been damaged, not by the normal compression of age, but by fire and attack. There are a number of hypotheses about what happened. My favorite is that a farmer's sheep got lost in the labyrinth and when he went in with a torch to find it he accidently set fire to the pits. That doesn't explain the crushed pottery unless that sheep had really big hooves.
Another explanation is that the burning was part of the funeral rites. This would explain both the breakage and the fire if the terracotta warriors were offered as sacrifice. If archaeologists can find examples of this tradition at other sites it would lend support to the theory. Another theory proposes that the pits were not entirely closed when the rebels reached the capital and overthrew the Qin Dynasty. The thought is that they set the fire and damaged the site as part of their victory pillaging. Still another theory is that grave robbers at some point in history found their way into the site and accidently set the fire as they were looking for things of value to sell on the market. |
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Last
update: March 2010
© Marilyn Shea, 2010