Hobby horses

For a few days now I’ve not been able to stop thinking of horses. Their origins mysterious, like the origin of everything we see around us. Their role in human history and culture, large and long. When humans arrived in most continents, the number of equine species had probably already dwindled to more or less what it is now: two or three. Historically, only two were domesticated, horses and donkeys. Although zebras have been trained (Lord Rothschild once drove to Buckingham Palace on a zebra-drawn carriage) they have not been successfully raised in domesticity.

Two sculptures of horses really stick in my mind. One is the pair of life-sized blue horses, polyester resin images made by the French artist Assan Smati, the other is the group of four harnessed to a chariot, made of fired clay in China probably 2200 years ago for the tomb of the Qin emperor Shi Huang.

The Tomb of the First Emperor

Close to the terracotta warriors of Xi’an is another major archaeological site: the underground tomb of the first emperor Qin Shih Huang. Old Chinese records talk of a huge tomb with terracotta representations of his capital and the nearby rivers recreated with mercury. The hillock in the photo above is where the tomb is supposed to lie. All around it excavations have exposed not only the terracotta army, but also terracotta representations of acrobats and entertainers. In one pit we saw the skeletons of real horses with terracotta charioteers. We read accounts which say that mercury levels in the soil near the hill are off the scale. Everyone believes that the tomb really is here.

But when you visit, there is nothing to see. All around the supposed tomb is a garden, where busloads of Chinese tourists come on guided tours. We followed a tour guide and his entourage in the mistaken belief that we had missed the entrance. There is no entrance.

There has been no digging. It was mysterious to us. A kind young man (there are so many people in China who are so very kind to foreigners) who spoke very good English told us that it is bad luck to dig up the tomb, so the government is not doing it.

There it was again. Luck. Does belief in it really play a role in determining minor government policy like this? Or perhaps even major ones? In India there are rumours of various prime ministers having consulted astrologers on policy. Does the notion of luck play the same role in China?