Sunday, December 21, 2008

Faithful in Battle


Terracotta Kitties, originally uploaded by penseroso.

photo and text © ervin vice

When the Chinese Terracotta Army was unearthed in 1974, most of the attention was focused on the soldiers, which seems reasonable enough. What few people realize, though, is that these warriors were accompanied not only by horses, chariots, musicians and acrobats, but by cats. No self-respecting soldier in Qin's army ever went anywhere without his faithful feline - not even to do battle for his emperor. I'm surprised that even the wikipedia article doesn't mention this!

3 comments:

Z said...

How interesting! (I assume you're not pulling our legs...) I had no idea..

Small City Scenes said...

I had no idea!! Being a horse lover I focused on the horses. MB

Anonymous said...

@ Z - Yes, pullng it right out of the socket! The shot was actually taken at Lucca Statuary in the Fremont neighborhood. It wasn't officially open for business yet, but there was a coffee stand on the property already doing a brisk business, so I asked the girl there if it would be OK if I wandered around and took some shots. She said sure, go ahead. It just goes to show that if you ask permission, sometimes the answer is yes - and I think it makes for a more enjoyable and fruitful photo session.