兵马俑名列2013全球最受欢迎博物馆排行榜第11位

Terra Cotta Army Museum Ranks 11^th Among the 2013 Most Popular Museums List

据德国《图片报》16日报道，全球最大的旅游网站Tripadvisor近日根据世界各国旅行者的真实评论和评分，发布了“2013全球最受欢迎的博物馆”名单，共有25个博物馆上榜。

获得第一名的圣彼得堡冬宫博物馆仅收藏的世界名画就有数万幅，包括达・芬奇、毕加索等人的作品。游客对这家博物馆予以一致的好评。在该榜单中排名前十的博物馆有5家在美国，3家在欧洲，还有排名第二的墨西哥人类学博物馆和排名第四的以色列耶路撒冷大屠杀纪念馆。

中国西安的秦始皇兵马俑博物馆位列第11名，这也是东亚地区唯一上榜的博物馆。在25个上榜的博物馆中，美国和欧洲占了名单的绝大多数。

An introduction to Qin Terra Cotta Army Museum

The world-famous Qin Terra Cotta Army Museum is a site museum in China. Built on the site of the terra-cotta warriors and horses pits in the Emperor Qin's Mausoleum, the museum is located at the northern piedmont of Lishan Mountain 7.5 kilometers east of Lingtong County in Shaanxi Province and 37.5 kilometers west of Xi'an City.

In March 1974, a group of peasants digging a well-made what was to become the greatest archaeological find of the 20th century when they unearthed fragments of a life-sized Terra Cotta Warrior. Excavation of the vault revealed thousands of terra-cotta warriors and their horses, an entire army designed to follow its emperor into eternity. The emperor's terra cotta army was found in three underground timber lined vaults.

The museum, a hangar-like building constructed over Pit 1, place of the original discovery in 1974, was opened to the public in 1979. The exhibition hall of Pit 3 was built in 1987 and opened to the public in 1989. Later in October 1994, Pit 2 was opened to the public. Three main buildings of the museum, which were named Pit 1, Pit 2 and Pit 3, were constructed on their original sites.

The museum covers an area of 190,000 square meters. Among all, Pit 1 has an area of 14,000 square meters for exhibition halls and Pit 3, 1,200 square meters, and the exhibition hall of copper vehicles and horses and the auxiliary exhibition hall cover over 600 square meters each.

Pit 1 contained chariots and ranks of six thousand soldiers. Pit 2 held fourteen hundred figures of cavalrymen, horses and infantrymen, along with ninety wooden chariots. Pit 3 contained about seventy figures. Excavating them has been a massive undertaking. To date, more than a thousand warriors have been reassembled.

The multiple exhibition halls lies to the east of Pit 2, covering a series of exhibits, such as two sets of bronze chariots and horses, the new findings from the Emperor Qin's Mausoleum, the history of the museum and all kinds of temporary exhibits. These displays systematically depict the history of the Qin Dynasty (221-206BC) and can help the viewers to have a better understanding on the terra-cotta warriors and horses. The south of Pit 1 is a circle vision hall. The movie inside lasts 20 minutes and provides vivid materials for telling the story of Emperor Qin and his Terra-cotta Army 2,200 years ago. The halls on the northwest of Pit 3, which covers 4,282 square meters, are the multiple service halls where the visitors can have meal, do shopping and take a rest.

The museum is not only a treasure house, but also a main scenic spot of Xi'an city. Today the eighth wonder of the world has almost become synonym of the Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses in 1987; the Emperor Qin's Mausoleum was put on the list of the UNESCO as a world-class cultural heritage site. Now the museum is widely known as a huge modern site museum and it is going to be one of the best in the world.