The Wikipedia article about the Terracotta Army notes (uncited) that:



What does that mean? Is the suggestion that the Chinese people of 210 BC thought that statuary could physically "protect" a corpse from intruders, or was it just that a grave robber would take one look at those hordes of statues and say, "Holy crap, I'm not wading through all those guys just to get a gold ring and silver chalice or two."

Seriously, what is meant by that sentence?

I'm fairly sure that it was one of those afterlife things - the army being set up to protect the emperor from other afterlife nasties in his journeys in the hereafter. My understanding, based on a book I picked up in about 1987 when I saw them for real in Xian, is that they used to sacrifice real people for the purpose of protecting the dead from whatever, so the terracotta warriors were designed as a replacement for the sacrifice - presumably they thought that if they made them really good it would be far better than some charred remains!

I went to China before it opened up, they were just experimenting with tourism then and our tour guide had to bribe, cajole and book tickets for 240 people 3 days before we wanted to fly. The warriors were really impressive - far more so in situ than the odd individual that has gone on its own world tour. We still have a couple of our own warriors sitting by the fire place - and we've not been burgled yet.

Holy Cow, Greg, will you never cease your flagrant promotion of Jimbo's Link Farm!? Don't you think his Oratorial Enterprises, Inc. are raking in enough dough at a Hundred Grand Plus First Class Airfare a pop!?

Does he really need that extra Bag-O-1st-Class-Peanuts with his Complimentary Top-Shelf Martini that your gratuitous {wp}…{/wp} just bought him!?

Jon

Here's the full text around it, though:



It appears that notion of afterlife protection was covered in the first sentence, which reads as "fact". Then the third sentence introduces an "alternative" view. I don't know, it just seems squirrelly to me.

Would it be any less credible for me to insert an uncited claim that "Other people think that the army was constructed as a means for common laborers to show their gratitude and support for the emperor"? Or, whimsically, "Others believe that the army was constructed with technology provided by extra-terrestrial visitors", and then cite it with a semi-relevant quote from Chariots of the Gods?

Sorry, Jon -- another link to Jimbo's sweatshop.

"Some People Think" falls under the interdiction of "Weasel Words".

Evidently, "Some People" are "Weasels".

Truer words were never spoken.

Jon

Obvious. They were built to keep Brendan Frasier at bay.

You edit it and after "Some people" put in {{who}}

That tells them to fix it. All the academic articles are generally the least edited. Whenever I read them I have to correct a grammer error every couple of sentences to make it readable.

Not to mention the spelling.