Nanking, Kiangsu province, China: stone warriors at the tomb of Zhu Yuanzhang, the first Ming emperor. Photograph by John Thomson, 1871.

Statues of warriors on a grassy plain, with two men in the foreground. The tomb of Zhu Yuanzhang, the first Ming emperor, was for Thomson one of the few traces of Nanjing’s former glory. Situated on the Zhongshan hill near to the city’s eastern wall, it was one of the largest mausoleums in imperial China. What seemed to impress Thomson most was the giant stone statues of warriors guarding this splendid monument: "the calm, majestic repose and benign expression of these stone warriors, who seem pleased with the task of guarding the ashes of the dead". The two natives in the picture were most likely coolies whom Thomson had hired to carry his photographic equipment. Their presence reveals the enormous size of the stone warriors