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The Historical City - XI'AN
Xi'an, the historical city, was called Chang'an in ancient times, and is now the capital of Shaanx i province. Xi'an has a long history. served as a capital for twelve dynasties, including the Western Zhou, Qin, Western Han, Sui and Tang dynasties, spanning over 1120 years. It became the oriental cultural center of the Silk Road.
Today's Xi'an is the biggest industrial city and cultural center in Northwest China and covers a total area of over 9700 square kilometers, and has a population of over 5,200,000.
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The Terracotta Warriors and Horses
The Terracotta Warriors and Horses in Xi'an are known as "the Eighth Wonder of the World" and listed in the World Cultural Heritage List. In March 1974, peasants in Xiyang Village came across a piece of an earthen figure when digging a well. Over 7,000 individual pottery soldiers, horses, chariots and weapons have been identified.
Qin Shihuang , the emperor of Qing Dynasty ordered his subjects to build a magnificent underground palace. Hundreds of thousands of people worked 17 years to complete it. These are the terracotta soldiers. The heights of the soldiers vary from 1.7 meters to 1.9 meters, and the weights from 100-odd kilograms to 300 kilograms. The terracotta horses are 1.5 meters tall and two meters long.
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| The soldiers and horses are made of clay, the weapons are real. For instance, an underground bronze sword still shines after having been buried underground for more than 2,000 years. |
The Huaqing Hot Spring Imperial Resort
Huaqing Palace is located at the foot of Lishan MT. about 30 kilometers east away from Xi'an City. 3,000 years ago, the King of Western Zhou had a palace built against the mountain because of the hot spring at the foot of the mountain. This Hot Spring was the resort palace of many emperors in following dynasties. The Huaqing Hot Spring Palace that we can see today was rebuilt on the site of the Qing Dynasty structure after 1949.
In the record of the history, the luxurious imperial bath-pools known as the Lotus Flower Pool and the Crabapple Pool were specially built by order of Emperor Xuanzong for his concubine Lady Yang to bathe in. Now they have been opened to the public as Tang Dynasty Imperial Bathing Pools Museum.
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The Big Wild Goose Pagoda
The Big Wild Goose Pagoda, located in Ci'en Temple, is about 4 kilometers south of Xian City. In 648 AD Tang emperor Gao Zong then still a crown prince, had it built to memorize his mother. The Temple then obtained its name Da Ci'en Temple, meaning the Thanksgiving Temple. According to the records, the temple, with more than 10 courtyards, contained 1,897 marvelous chambers altogether.
Monk Xuanzang was a very famous Buddhist Master and the founder of Faxiang sect of Buddhism. He went to India to research the Buddhist doctrines in 629 AD . (the 3rd year of Zhenguan period), and then he came back in 645 AD with 657
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| volumes of Buddhist scriptures. In the temple, he translated 74 volumes in 1,335 chapters of the Buddhist scriptures into Chinese. In order to protect the Buddhist Scriptures, Monk Xuanzang asked for a pagoda to be built. He designed the pagoda like a wild goose as he saw in India. So this pagoda was called the Wild Goose Pagoda in memory of the famous Monk. It was a five-storeyed pagoda when it was first built. It was added to 10 storeys in 701 AD when it was rebuilt; But nobody knew the reason (no record) why the pagoda became 7 storeys until today |
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Banpo Neolithic Village
In the present-day Banpo village, about five kilometers to the east from Xi'an, lies the actual and complete archaeological site of a Neolithic village---the Banpo Site, dating back to 6000 years. It is a typical village of that time, discovered in the spring of 1953. Later, after five large-scale digs of excavation organized by Chinese Academy of Sciences, an area of approximate 10,000 square meter was excavated, covering one fifth of the total site area. Among the excavated finds are 45 house sites, 2 penned sites, 6 pottery-making kilns, over 200 pits, over 250 burial jars of adults and children, over 1,000 pieces of tools and utensils, as well as thousands of kernels, animal bones and rotten millets. An on-the-site museum was set up here in 1985, and named after the present place where it was discovered "Xi'an Banpo Museum". Apart from the relic exhibition rooms, a 3,000 square-meter on-the-site great hall of the remains was set up for protection of the site. The Banpo Museum is one of the historical sites designated for state protection. |
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