"The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army" opened at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta on Nov. 16 and continues through April 19. The museum has already sold a record 90,000 tickets for the exhibit.
The exhibit consists of 20 figures and dozens of artifacts from the tomb of an ancient Chinese emperor. Nearly 1,000 figures have been excavated from the tomb since it was discovered in 1974. In recent years, ongoing excavations have revealed that the army stood guard over a vast underground palace of far greater complexity than was previously assumed.
The traveling exhibit includes 10 warriors, court officials, an acrobat, a bare-chested strongman, musicians, a stable boy, chariot horses and bronze water birds. The museum said it is the largest collection of the figures to ever leave China. This is a fascinating look into the history of one of the world’s oldest and richest cultures, as well as one of the world’s greatest discoveries—the First Emperor’s terracotta army.
At between 6 feet and 6-feet-5-inches tall and weighing in at about 400 pounds apiece, the statues are larger than life and intricately detailed. At the High, visitors can walk all the way around the figures and stand within a few feet of them, unlike in the museum in China where the figures can only be viewed from a distance on elevated platforms. Jimmy Carter, the former president, and his wife Rosalynn, were among the dignitaries who previewed the show in Atlanta.
The statues in the traveling show were previously displayed at the British Museum in London and at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, Calif. From Atlanta, they move on the Houston Museum of Natural Science and the National Geographic Society Museum in Washington, D.C.