Emperor Qin's Terra Cotta Warriors come to U.S.

[Saionji Shonagon]

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[Otagiri Tatsuzou]

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- August 10, 2007) As China begins its one-year countdown to the summer Olympic Games in Beijing, a delegation of museum officials representing the Bowers Museum in California, The Houston Museum of Natural Science in Texas and the National Geographic Museum in Washington, D.C., have reached agreement with Chinese officials in Xi'an for an historic U.S. tour of the famed Chinese Terra Cotta Warriors beginning in May 2008.

These warriors represent one of the greatest archaeological treasures in the world today. The exhibit will feature Emperor Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor; his tomb and surrounding sites; the discovery of the site by well diggers in 1974 and many exciting new finds, as well as the largest collection of the famed figures to ever leave China.

The exhibition of 120 sets of objects will include 20 complete life-sized terra cotta figures and will feature new discoveries of court officials, acrobats and generals. Equally exciting and probably most dramatic are the inclusion of two recently discovered, half-sized bronze chariots and life-sized bronze animals that were found in what would have been gardens within the tomb complex belonging to Qin Shi Huang (259 - 210 B.C.).
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