Terra-Cotta Warriors Come to America
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
More than a dozen Chinese terra-cotta warriors crafted more than 2,000 years ago to protect their emperor in the afterlife have arrived in America with a very different mission: to be cultural ambassadors.
As China gears up for the 2008 Olympics, the ancient, life-size clay statues of warriors, archers, and chariot drivers go on display at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, Calif., as the largest loan of the warriors in American history.
“Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China’s First Emperor” opens Sunday and runs for five months before the warriors travel to Houston, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C., over the next two years. It’s a debut timed to the Beijing Olympics that was millions of dollars and four years in the making, the Bowers Museum’s president, Peter Keller, said.
Curators hope the show will pique the interest of Americans who are inundated with news of lead-contaminated Chinese toys, human rights violations in Tibet, and rapid economic expansion, but who know nothing of the nation’s ancient and storied past.
