National Geographic Museum: Terra Cotta Warriors
Today, the boys and I visited the Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit at the National Geographic Museum., the final stop on their two-year-long US tour. Ryan was enthralled. He couldn’t read and learn enough about Ancient Chinese history; Qin Shihuangdi, the First Emperor of China; and the Terra Cotta Warriors. Connor, on the other hand, was completely overwhelmed by the amount of signage and reading required to understand the exhibit. While we were told it takes most families about 30 minutes to wander through the exhibit, it took us an hour and a half to read the signage, see the artifacts, and complete the exhibit. Connor did well at the beginning, lost interest in the middle, (read: acted up as only he can), and returned to my side to listen quietly, if not attentively, at the end of the exhibit, after surprising himself by setting off an alarm, a very LOUD alarm, when he reached over a barrier to touch a sign.
Ryan and Connor pose with a model of a Terra Cotta Warrior,
no photos were permitted in the exhibit.
The history of Ancient China and the Qin (Chin) Dynasty was fascinating, but overall, I was a bit disappointed by the exhibit. The Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit seemed to have far more signage than artifacts, and while the Terra Cotta Warriors themselves were fascinating – they are over 2,200 years old.- there were only about 10 of them in the entire exhibit. No more than three warriors were posed together in any one location. Now, my husband pointed out that the warriors are 2,200 years old and very fragile and it would be irresponsible to ship too many of them across the ocean, but all in all, I thought the enormity of the archaeological find was lost in their presentation in this exhibit.
Don’t pass up the exhibit if you are in the area, however. As I said, my eight year old is now fascinated by Ancient Chinese history and archaeology. I will be taking advantage of his interest to delve into this time period, and to discuss archeological digs and findings. The National Geographic Museum website has a wonderful Teacher and Student Guide and an e-Exhibit Guide. I would highly recommend downloading the Teacher and Student Guide whether or not you will be visiting the exhibit. It is chock-full of facts and stories about Ancient China and the Qin Dynasty. The boys particularly enjoyed the story of the three children whose father was a pit-foreman in Pit 2 of the Necropolis, The Warrior with the Smiling Mustache, a well-written historical-fiction story.
We received our exhibition tickets last-minute from friends who had tickets they were unable to use. As a result, we didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to research and learn about this time period and the Terra Cotta Warriors before visiting the exhibit. Had we had more time to go through the Teacher and Student Guide, we likely would have been able to move through the exhibit at a pace more conducive to Connor’s interest level, with statements such as, “Oh this is the …. remember when we read about that,” but as it was, Ryan’s interest was sparked and that makes today a successful homeschooling day… for at least one of our students!
The National Geographic Museum is also showing a free movie that highlights the Terra Cotta Warriors, the Emperor, and the Qin Dynasty. The movie is, however, only shown Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at noon (with a special showing on select Saturdays at 2pm). We missed the movie today when we took longer than expected to walk through the exhibit. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the movie if you did have the opportunity to view it. Ryan is hoping to go back to see the movie before the exhibit leaves the NGM at the end of March. Is the movie alone worth a trip back?