Museum to host ancient army

It took six years and several trips to China before Peter Keller returned with the ultimate souvenir.

In April, the Newport Beach resident and Bowers Museum president secured the largest exhibition of Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s Terra Cotta Army ever to come to the United States, featuring 20 complete warriors. It will premiere at the Bowers next spring.

“When you think about what you want to bring home from a country like China, you have to think about what people can relate to, what they’re going to want to see,” Keller said. “I think for the general American audience, there’s no more powerful symbol of ancient China than the Terra Cotta Warriors.”

Built by Emperor Qin in the third century B.C., the Terra Cotta Army was designed and buried to help defend the emperor in the afterlife.

About 1,200 statues, including soldiers, horses and bronze carriages, have been unearthed since the site was discovered in 1974 near Xi’an, China, though archeologists believe more than 8,000 life-size figures remain underground.

No two soldiers are alike — each features a distinct facial expression and hairstyle — and every one is engraved with a Chinese character, indicating its maker, Keller said.

Each soldier represented an aspect of the Chinese military, including cavalry, archers and generals, and they were buried with real weapons and arranged by rank as they would have been in life.

“The First Emperor’s tomb not only had everything he needed to protect himself in the afterlife, it had his whole life,” Keller said. “They’ve discovered entertainment gardens, acrobats and court officials.”

The late Emperor was known for his eccentricities.

His bronze, city-sized mausoleum, deemed a World Heritage Site by the United Nations, is believed to have contained 500 tons of flowing mercury to symbolize the rivers and seas and a jeweled ceiling representing the heavens.

Qin also left a legacy as the first emperor to unify China and the leader who oversaw construction of the precursor to the Great Wall.

The Bowers has a long history of working with China on exhibits. Over the years, Keller has visited the country 54 times.

Past exhibits included “Symbols of Powers: Masterpieces from the Nanjing Museum” in 2002 and “Secret World of the Forbidden City: Splendors from China’s Imperial Palace” in 2000.

On display now through Aug. 19 is “Treasures from Shanghai: 5,000 Years of Art and Culture.”

Keller credits the museum board’s Vice Chairwoman Anne Shih for facilitating negotiations with Asian governments, beginning with the “Jade: Ch’ing Dynasty Treasures from the National Museum of History, Taiwan” exhibit in 1997.

“I had failed on three attempts to get that jade exhibit from Taiwan and had virtually given up on it when Anne Shih came in,” Keller said. “That was really the first large exhibit we did with an Asian country, and now we have such a rich tradition working with China.”

Featuring 120 objects, including the 20 warriors, the historic exhibit will debut at the Bowers before traveling on to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

The Chinese government does not normally allow more than 24 level-one grade cultural artifacts out of the country at a time, Keller said.

“This exhibit alone has 51 level-one objects,” he said.

“Each Terra Cotta warrior has a $2 million value, so you can tell how important they are,” Shih added.

The pieces were selected from 11 sites in the Shaanxi Province of China, including the Museum of the First Emperor’s Terracotta Army and Horses, the Xianyang Museum and the Xi’an Institute for Archeological Research and Protection.

“I think it’s really a coup that the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana is premiering this for the entire United States,” Keller said.

Keller could not be more pleased with the exhibit’s timing.

“I especially wanted to do it in the summer of 2008 because the world attention will be focused on the Olympics in Beijing,” he said. “That way people will be able to explore China right here at home.”

“Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China’s First Emperor” will run at the Bowers Museum from May 18 to Oct. 12, 2008.

The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday at 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana. Tickets for the exhibit, now available online, are $20 to $22 for adults and $14 to $16 for students and seniors.

For more information, go to www.bowers.org.