Chinese refuse to open the mysterious tomb of their first emperor and the remaining 6,000 terracotta soldiers

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Some things are best left undisturbed.
 
According to the Chinese government, that includes the remaining 6,000 terracotta soldiers and the rest of Qin Shi Huang's colossal burial site in Xi'an, China.

China's first emperor was buried over two thousand years ago in the most opulent tomb complex ever made in China.
Even its protection system is impressive - an underground moat of poisonous mercury to keep out looters.

Ancient terracotta warriors stand in a pit at the Emperor Qin's Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum

An armoured general of the Terracotta Army that was featured in an exhibition at the British Museum

 

It contains a sprawling city-size collection of underground caverns containing everything the emperor would need for the afterlife.
The Qin emperor chose to bury clay reproductions of his armies, concubines, administrators and servants with him in the tomb.

The first of the 8,000 life-size terracotta statues was unearthed in 1974 by farmers digging wells near Xi'an.

To date a total of 2,000 soldiers have been dug out of the earth - but now work has stopped.
'The big hill, where the emperor is buried — nobody's been in there,' archaeologist Kristin Romey, curatorial consultant for the Terracotta Warrior exhibition at New York City’s Discovery Times Square told website Livescience.

'Partly it's out of respect for the elders, but they also realize that nobody in the world right now has the technology to properly go in and excavate it.'

Archaeologists are being kept on a leash until new technologies have been developed that can safely uncover precious artifacts without disturbing them.
'It's really smart what the Chinese government is doing,' said Romey.

'When we went into [Egyptian King] Tut's tomb, think about all the information we lost just based on the excavation techniques of the 1930s.

Howevers, she believes technology has almost reached the stage where tiny, robotic cameras could be sent in.

'I wouldn’t be surprised if you had some sort of robotic visual survey going in there at some point,' she said.

Another issue that is preventing archaeologists from diving into the central tomb that holds Qin's palace is a suspected moat of hazardous mercury that is thought to surround Qin's central burial spot.

A member of an archaeology team unearths a terracotta warrior at the excavation site at the Museum of Qin Terracotta Warriors and Horses

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2189908/Some-things-best-left-untouched-Why-Chinese-ignoring-best-secret-tomb.html#ixzz24PaFoTHT