The Chinese Terracotta Army And Its Historical Value
In the ancient world, China is among the few nations with a deep culture. One of the wonders from the Chinese rich history is the Terracotta army from the 3rd century. As well known, Chinese emperors were treated with great respect since the Terracotta armies shows its power during its period. Their special treatment was accorded to them in their lifetime and even to their grave. The Terracotta army was unearthed by a bunch of farmers in the county of Lintong, China. This was not a planned affair but rather an accidental occurrence as they had been digging a well approximated distance of 1.5km from the emperor’s graveyard. It is fair to say that it was not an archeological excavation.
Looking closely at the tomb army, the figures appear to differ in their heights where the generals are the tallest and as you go down the ranks, the height keeps getting reduced. The sculptures however represented different aspects. They represented the emperor’s warriors, the chariots and army horses. All these army representations were designed for the sole purpose of safeguarding the emperor during his maiden afterlife. The grave, containing three separate pits also had within them other sculptures representing other kind of officials of the emperor’s palace, the kingdom’s strongest men and also assorted acrobats and music artistes set aside for the emperor’s entertainment in his afterlife. In total, the Terracotta army consisted of a grand 8000 ground soldiers, 130 chariots made of a couple of 520 horses of which 150 of the horses were of the cavalry division. Since the Qin dynasty was so well known for their great leadership and a huge empire all because of the Emperor Shihuang-di, under his leadership, workers could built such great sculptures and thus able to stand for his strong power.
The tomb of an emperor has for long time in Chinese history been regarded a very special treatment for a leader. Its construction was therefore done by a special group of masons that served the royal palace. For the Terracotta army tomb, its construction kicked off in 246 BCE immediately after Qin ascended to the throne as the emperor at a tender age of 13. The construction was done by a total of 700,000 workers. To determine the location of the emperor’s tomb, a long research had to be done to locate it in a strategic place. Just after the emperor had successfully consolidated his empire, the 700,000 workers were deployed to begin the construction.
The excavation of the earth was done until they reached the underground water channels where they made an outer casing of copper to make the coffin for the emperor after which art facts of immense value were littered all over the place to make the place glitter and precious. The designers of the tomb had in mind the plan to simulate China’s precious rivers and sceneries for the emperor in his afterlife. Therefore, to achieve this, mercury was used to feign the Chinese hundred rivers, the Yellow river and the famous Yangtze. Also included was the great sea with an automated flow. All these were to make the emperor live in a posh place in his afterlife. The designers of the tomb, often referred to as the craftsmen were locked inside after the burial ceremony so that they would not reveal the secrets of the emperor’s tomb to the general public. Till date, even after the excavation processes took place, the tomb remains locked as originally found since the Chinese government fears that if tampered with, the artefacts inside the copper coffin might fade in value or get destructed.
On the Terracotta army site, only four pits have been unearthed till date. In the first pit, which is a 230x62 meters dig out was found to contain among the four, the largest number of the original sculptures which was 6000 pieces of sculpture. The pit passage ways corridors measuring up to 3 feet wide used for movement around the tomb by the personified sculptures in activities to defend the emperor. The corridors’ sides were then laid with bricks in the walls and a wooden ceiling graced the creation. After this, they laid these roofs with more and more reed and then covered it with mud to make it waterproof. As for pit two, it is seen to contain sculptures that represented a line of cavalry soldiers, war chariots thus creating a defense line for the emperor. Moving on to pit three, you realize that it was occupied by the largest of the sculptures. Keep in mind that the larger the sculpture, the higher in command a sculpture represented. Therefore, pit three can be considered as a command post where the generals resided and from where the junior officers took commands. When the site was unearthed, evidences of fire damage was reported on some of the sculptures. A couple of weapons that were obviously supposed to be present in an emperor’s tomb were also missing and they were associated with the long suspected to have been stolen by the legendary and eternal enemy to the emperor, Xiang Yu. Today, the available sculptures that are in the site and museum had to be redone and remolded. The reason is that this same villain burnt the site and as a result of the fire, the roof fell on the army underneath causing their deformation. The ideological motivations of Xiang Yu as an anti-Qin rebel aren’t clear. The other pits have within them carriages of bronze and characters who resemble 8 musicians and acrobats for the main man’s entertainment purposes.
When the Terracotta sculptures are studied closely, it is easy to identify their likeness to real-life human beings and especially their military body outlooks and physique. As previously discussed, their sizes vary based on the rank of the individual army official. The armory they possess is also different. The difference in the artillery is evident in the shape of their weapons, the positioning on the officer’s body and also the hardness in the material of their armors. Scholars have always argued on the authenticity of the sculptures with the Chinese culture in context since these types of sculpture had not been seen until the Qin dynasty came into power. Some of the scholars argued that the trend of putting up real-life sized sculptures had an influence of the Greek. This idea has however been played down by the mere fact that most scholars think that other parts of the world couldn’t come up with decent ideas or designs without some aspect of western influence. At the same time, no scholar I history has showed concrete evidence connecting the Chinese tomb builders with the Greek despite the latter being famous explorers.
With a lot of modernism but still influenced by the past, the sculptures were redone in the Chinese factories and especially the local craft artistes in order to uphold originality of the sculptures or rather, give it an authentic Chinese look. The sculptures were also assembled using local materials since the assumption is that due to the abundance and pride of the Qin dynasty, there was no intention to ship material from outside his prestigious empire. After these items were put together to finally come up with real-life human sculptures, they were gently and professionally put back into the pits in line with army formation, rank and purpose. As for the artillery, there was less of it due to cases of rusting and wearing off. On top of these two destructive factors, looting, a common vice in China committed with intent to destroy an enemy or enrich self, ensured that most weapons did not live to see the light of unearthing and discovery. However, the damage was not enough since more than 40,000 pieces of bronze made weapons were unearthed which included sets of ancient Chinese swords, battle-axes, shields, bows and arrows and daggers among other forms of weapons meant for the then Chinese army. It is important to note that the larger bulk of the recovered weapons were arrowheads which in China are usually in stacks of 100. The reason these arrowheads lasted for such a long time is the reason that they were coated with a large layer of chromium that ranged between 10 and 15 mm of chromium dioxide which protected he metal from natural forces of metal rust for a period of more than 2000 years. The most recent study however distances this brilliance from the Chinese as it cites that the said chromium was not intentionally applied but rather a leak from a proximate lacquer. The arrowheads then must have been preserved by an alkaline environment that exists on the hill and rather not the chromium leak.
The Chinese like preserving their history. To achieve this, and also as a way to promote international tourism in China, the artefacts were preserved in Chinese government museums. However, in 1982, the Chinese government, with an aim to market tourism also presented the Terra Cotta sculptures in Melbourne, Australia. In London too, a total of 12 terracotta soldier sculptures were presented with a tag: “The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army” in the year 2007 which brought the highest ever recorded number of visitors to that particular museum. On this particular event, some of 12 the interested persons to view the artefacts had to be denied access as the place was packed to the maximum capacity and the museum’s management had to extend the closing hours of the museum to midnight. In North America, the San Francisco museum and the Bowers Museum among other popular museums such as the Nat Geo museum in Washington DC were graced by the site of the terracotta artefacts and the attendance results were just similar to those across Europe.
The Terracotta attraction is therefore such a massive site and the fact that it is among the recognized wonders of the world shows its historical value. Thinking of the complexity of such a project, it also stands for the civilization of China for that specific period. In this way, how those sculptures built and how they are still exist today and well-preserved as well show a reflection of the long live history of China. In my opinion, despite the oppression the Qin dynasty showed to its people, they left something for the world to see.
Bibliography
- Higgins Charlotte, Terracotta Army Makes British Museum Favorite Attraction. 2008, The Guardian, London. Retrieved on May 25, 2010.
- Ledderose Lothar, A Magic Army for the Emperor; module and mass production in Chinese art. 2000. Princeton University Press.
- Nickel, Lukas. 'The First Emperor and Sculpture in China.' Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 76, no. 3 (2013): 413-47. doi:10.1017/s0041977x13000487.
- Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian: Han Dynasty I. 1993 Translated by Burton Watson. Hong Kong: Renditions/Columbia University Press, TravelChina.com.
