About 8,000 Terracotta Warriors were buried in three pits less than a mile to the northeast of the mausoleum of the First Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huangdi. They include infantryman, archers, cavalry, charioteers and generals. Now new research, including newly translated ancient records, indicates that the construction of these warriors was inspired by Greek art. CREDIT: Lukas Hlavac | Shutterstock
Alexander’s push to the east ended up having a huge cultural impact. The Hellenistic World in the Eastern Mediterranean became a funky place with a lot of exotic oriental influence. And the Asian world was introduced to the achievements of Classical Greece. Everyone came out ahead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhist_art
Kipling comes to mind:
“OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!”
I saw the terra cotta warriors in 1983 when just a few of them had been excavated. The uniforms are all different, as are the faces. Some of the faces looked western. I guessed Turkish at the time. They are amazing.
Of course they were painted in bright colors at the time they were buried. There were a few of them where the paint had been restored when I viewed them in 1983.
