A terracotta warrior at the exhibition in Hamburg. Photo / Reuters
They stand silently, with all the solemnity of their 2000 years resting on their clay armour-clad shoulders.
But these terracotta warriors may not be the genuine article.
German police were yesterday investigating whether ancient Chinese terracotta warriors that form a museum's newly opened exhibition are fake.
The Hamburg
Museum of Ethnology is offering refunds to about 10,000 visitors who have already viewed the "Power in Death" exhibition since it opened on November 25, pending an outcome to the probe.
The display of eight clay warrior figures, two horses and 60 smaller objects will remain open - with a sign stating its authenticity is disputed - until a panel of Chinese experts arrive to review the figures later this week, museum spokeswoman Marina Lifschitz said.
German media reported that officials from Xi'an, home of the 2000-year-old clay funerary army, said the museum's figures had to be copies. Chinese officials were quoted saying they were not aware of original figures on loan in Germany.
Lifschitz said Hamburg museum authorities believed the figures were real because they had asked their partner in the exhibition to provide artefacts reconstructed from pieces found at the Xi'an site.
A spokesman for the museum's partner, the Centre of Chinese Art and Culture in Markkleeberg, near Leipzig, said the figures had been obtained from public authorities, institutes and businesses in China. Their Chinese partners did not say the figures were real, he said.
"There was never a word about originals in the Hamburg contract," CCAC spokesman Yolna Grimm said.
Unearthed about 30 years ago by a farmer digging a well, the Terracotta Army comes from the tomb of Emperor Qin Shihuangdi who spent over 20 years laying the foundations of modern China before dying in 210 BC.
The biggest overseas loan by the Chinese museum housing figures is at the British Museum in London, whose "First Emperor" exhibition contains 120 artefacts, including 20 life-size warriors.
- Reuters
