Terracotta Soldiers Unharmed at BM

A visitor to "The First Emperor..." exhibition at London's British Museum placed face masks on two terracotta warrior statues to protest China's increasing pollution.

London's Daily Mail reported that on October 14, 2007, Martin Wyness, a 49-year-old resident of Herefordshire, England, traveled to the British Museum with his two daughters and placed face masks on a pair of life-sized funerary statues featured in The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army, a touring special exhibition of antiquities on loan from the People's Republic of China. Having climbed over barriers while guards were unaware of his security breach, Mr. Wyness' act was intended to call attention to China's increasing carbon dioxide emissions, its atrocious pollution record and the international community's lack of a cohesive program to combat global warming. The two masks bore the phrase "CO2 emission polluter" in blue ink on them. Once alerted by visitors to the show, guards detained Wyness and then ushered him out of the museum; he is now banned for life from ever returning there.

The two statues, each 2200 years old, appear to have been unharmed. And security measures at the exhibition have been increased. With regard to Mr. Wyness' act of protest, British Museum spokesperson Hannah Boulton was quoted in The New York Times as saying, "The idea is very much about letting visitors get close to the warriors and see the detail and stand face to face with them. It is a shame he chose to abuse that privilege."