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The exhibition is in two halves: the first half looks at the First Emperor and his empire, and the second half the
terracotta figures and his tomb. Suggested activities before visiting the exhibition Qin Shihuangdi and Chinese History China before the first emperor: XIA Dynasty to warring states period The Bronze Age in China began around 2000 BC with the Xia Dynasty.
At this time Chinese civilisation was centred around the river valleys of the Why is he called the First Emperor? The rulers of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties controlled large
territories, and those of the Zhou in particular believed they ruled
by divine right – known as the Mandate of Heaven.
However, they still saw themselves only as earthly monarchs. Qin
Shihuangdi saw himself differently. He believed he was from the
same lineage as the divine Sage Kings of China’s mythical past. He
wished both to live forever and to go on ruling into eternity. So he Entertainment in the court of the first emperor The First Emperor knew that if he failed in his
search for the secret of eternal life, he would still
rule in the parallel world of the after-life. So within
the inner and outer walls of his tomb complex, the
First Emperor made sure he would have a palace
complex every bit as grand and luxurious as the
ones he had in life.
In pits close to the tomb mound, archaeologists
have discovered numerous pottery figures of
courtiers, officials, musicians and acrobats. In
contrast to the stiff, military poses of the terracotta
warriors, the figures of the entertainers are full
of life, caught in mid-performance. The heavily-
muscled, pot-bellied strongman was found in a pit
which also contained a massive bronze ritual vessel
which it seems likely he was about to lift; an acrobat
stands poised hand raised, balancing an unknown
object on the tip of one finger. It is a scene you
could see today at the Shanghai Circus. Archaeology is telling us more and more about Qin Shihuangdi and his empire, but for a long time there was only one main source of information about him. That was a book called the Shi Ji, also known as the Records of the Grand Historian of China. It was written by Sima Qian between 109 and 91 BC, 100 years after the death of the First Emperor. He was a palace official at the court of the Han Emperor Wudi – the Han was the Dynasty that followed Qin Shihuangdi.Sima Qian’s aim was to write a complete history of China from the time of the mythical Yellow Emperor to his own time. Six years into the writing of the Shi Ji, Sima Qian fell out of favour with the Emperor and was thrown into prison. He was sentenced to death, but chose to be castrated instead so that he could stay alive to complete his work. From this we can see that his edication to his work cannot be questioned, but we have to be more careful bout accepting his accuracy, especially in his accounts of the empire under Qin Shihuangdi. We know that he had access to the imperial records of the Qin, so much of his information comes from the best of sources. However, Sima Qian had several agenda. Primarily he was writing in and for the Han Dynasty, whose emperors wanted to emphasize their right to rule by damaging the reputation of their predecessor, the First Emperor. It is also likely that some of the criticisms of Qin Shihuangdi are secretly directed at the Han and Emperor Wudi.It is possible that some of the most terrible stories about Qin Shihuangdi are later additions to the Shi Ji, but even so Sima Qian does not paint a kind picture of him and emphasizes many of his worst aspects. In time, other evidence may show some of this to be unfair. One other thing that remains to be tested is Sima Qian’s staggering account of the contents of Qin Shihuangdi’s tomb mound (see The Tomb Mound of the First Emperor).
Attitudes to Qin Shihuangdi have changed throughout history and periodically he has been known as a cruel and ruthless tyrant who may have united China for the first time but only at a terrible cost. It is seen that his obsessive quest for immortality came to nothing, and instead of ruling for 10,000 generations, his dynasty lasted only 15 years. Much of this, however, comes from the version of one historian writing for a dynasty that wished to discredit Qin Shihuangdi (see Historical Records).If we step back and look at what we now know about the First Emperor from the records of the time and from new archaeological finds, his achievements in such a short space of time were remarkable and extraordinarily long-lasting. In unifying China he brought to an end centuries of war between the rival states and there is only evidence of him treating one of these states harshly after conquest. In establishing a central government to control the new empire, he abolished the inheritance of titles and offices which had led to much corruption, and instead created a strict hierarchy based on merit and achievement. In standardizing all the coinage, weights and measures to be used across he empire he ensured fairness and uniformity in trade and commerce.It is not possible for us now to say how much of this was done from a sense of justice and how much simply stemmed from the need to control. The system of laws and punishments the First Emperor introduced were certainly strict and severe, but they were also wide-ranging and universally applied. We have detailed knowledge of them from the records on 1100 bamboo strips discovered in the tomb of a local magistrate dating to 217 BC. The strict penal code ensured that the Emperor had a ready supply of convict labour for his great projects such as the Great Wall (see The Great Wall), the road and canal systems, is palaces and, of course, his tomb. Every able-bodied male was also liable to conscription into the army for a year or more and after that to an annual period of labour in the emperor’s service. He also continued an established practice of the Qin before conquest in which every household was registered and members of communities were placed into “responsibility groups” obliged to inform the authorities if anyone failed in their duty or broke a law.However he was viewed, every dynasty that succeeded Qin Shihuangdi, including the Han which criticized him so severely, continued to use and benefit from the principles of government he laid down. In particular the absolute right of command he established has continued to be seen as the norm right up to modern times. The Discovery of the Terracotta Army The tomb site of the First Emperor not far from the present-day city of Xi’an in Shaanxi Province had been known for more than 2000 years, but it was not until a chance discovery in 1974 that the wonders of the Terracotta Army began to come to light.In March of that year, a group of men from a nearby village were looking for a new place to sink a well. They decided to try a spot about 1.5 kilometres east of the First Emperor’s tomb mound. They had been digging for some hours when one of them, Yang Xinman, hit something hard. Thinking it was just a rock, he called for his friends to help move it. What, in fact, his spade had struck was a mass consisting of the head and torso of one of the generals of Qin Shihuangdi’s spirit army. The men reported their find to local officials, and the site that was to have been a simple well became one of the most important and complex archaeological excavations of all time. As work has progressed over the years, four main Terracotta Army pits have come to light: three with figures in them and one empty, suggesting the complex was not completed before the Emperor’s eath. It is estimated that the pits contain up to 8,000 figures, though the exact total may never be known.Some of the other figures in the exhibition and the bronze carriage and horses come from excavations thin the walls of the tomb complex around the tomb mound itself.If you visit the Terracotta Army yourself, you might get a chance to meet one of the three men who made the discovery as they are sometimes there signing copies of the official guidebook! The Great Wall of China that we are familiar with today dates from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). It was built largely using previously existing foundations and the man credited with building the first Great Wall is Qin Shihuangdi. In fact the history of the Wall goes back even further. During e Eastern Zhou period (770-221 BC) a number states built defensive walls against either orthern tribes or neighbouring states. It was he First Emperor, however, who took these existing walls and linked them, adding a further 5000 kilometres, to create a single northern defensive system. The Qin wall divides into an eastern, a central and a western section, and together they run from the stern end of the Yellow River into modern-day Korea. It was not made of brick like the later Ming Dynasty Wall, but of rammed earth and stone. It was built by hundreds of thousands of soldiers, convicts, slaves and ordinary people, countless numbers of whom died in the process. served not just as a defence for the empire, but also as a symbol of the First Emperor’s power. The making of the Terracotta figures When Qin Shihuangdi gave orders for the construction of his underground army and all the attendant figures for his tomb complex, he was asking his officials to do something that had never been done before. They had no models from earlier times to work from, since wood and pottery figures that had been placed in tombs before were neither life-size nor modelled as realistically as required. In fact, at the time of the First Emperor, the modelling of figures of any kind was still at a very early stage of development.Faced with this seemingly impossible task, they turned to what they knew best: strict and careful organisation of the workforce and tried and tested technology and procedures from other areas of technology. They created what we might see these days as a huge manufacturing company with managers, overseers and workmen organized into factory complexes. The making of the figures was broken down into separate steps using, wherever possible, the 1000 year old technique of modelling from moulds. For this they borrowed heavily from building technology in the making of tiles and pipes. The clay they used for their material seems mainly to have come from Lishan, the mountain at the foot of which stands the Emperor’s tomb mound. It was probably prepared at a central processing plant and then sent out to the various workshops.The process of construction of a figure varies slightly according to its type, but also, it would seem according to which workshop made it. They were built from the bottom to top with a heavily modelled solid base and feet to give the whole figure the necessary support; above the lower legs the figures are hollow. The lower body was jointed onto the legs, and the torso was built up with coiled clay, sometimes in one part, sometimes in two. The heads, arms and hands were modelled separately. It would seem that the hands were made flat in two-part moulds and then bent into the desired position. The heads were either made from two moulds, or just one mould for the face with the back of the head modelled by hand. Hair-dos and caps or hats were made separately and then added to the figures. So far up to ten different basic face shapes have been identified, but varying combinations of facial features, such as beards, moustaches and eyebrows were carefully added to make each figure appear unique. All the other body parts, clothes and armour were also hand-finished and the whole figure brightly and realistically painted so the final effect is the startling appearance of a real army composed of distinct, individual soldiers. The pits that were dug to hold the Terracotta Army cover an area of more than 2,500 square metres and are situated about 1.5 kilometres east of the Emperor’s tomb mound itself. Four pits have been excavated, three containing figures and one empty. They were all built along roughly the same lines. Taking Pit 1 as an example, it was sunk almost 5 metres into the ground and then reinforced to make it as long-lasting as possible. There are ramps along the sides to allow the workmen access. The ground and sides were strengthened with thick layers of rammed earth. Ten thick partitions of rammed earth were uilt running the length of the pit, dividing the space into eleven corridors in which the terracotta figures were placed. The floors of these corridors were paved with bricks, and the walls lined with wooden beams and posts. Large rounded wood beams, the impressions of which can still be seen, ran across the top of the corridors to support the roof at a height of about 3 metres. The finished effect would have been that of a hallway in a palace. Reed mats were laid out on top of the roof beams, followed by layers of clay to form a water-proof protection. Any remaining gaps in the pit ere filled with rammed earth, and then soil from the original excavation was piled on top to form a mound 2-3 metres high.Pit 1, which is rectangular in shape, is the largest and housed the main army of armoured and un-armoured soldiers interspersed with four-horse carriages. The soldiers are arranged in formation with a rear-guard, and flanks with soldiers facing outward. This is the most fully-excavated pit. t 2 is the next largest and is L-shaped; it has only been partially excavated to allow the visitor to see what it was like at the time of discovery. It contains a large squadron of war chariots and armoured cavalrymen standing in front of their horses, and a group of archers and infantrymen. Pit 3 is smaller and U-shaped. It is the only pit that has been fully excavated and contains one chariot, centrally positioned, and 68 high-ranking officers and infantrymen. Archaeologists believe that it represents the command headquarters of the army. Pit 4 is large in size and situated between Pits 2 and 3, but completely empty. It is believed that work on the complex came to a halt during the uprisings that followed the death of the First Emperor and that Pit 4 s never completed. The tomb mound of the First Emperor Staggering as all the discoveries already made are, the greatest of all is still waiting for archaeologists to tackle it. Qin Shihuangdi’s tomb mound itself has been completely untouched, it is believed, since he was placed under it in 210 BC. We do however have a description of what might e there, thanks to the writings of Sima Qian, the Grand Historian of China (see Historical Records):“As soon as the First Emperor became king of Qin, excavations and building had been started at Mount Li, while after he won the empire, more than 700,000 conscripts from all parts of the country worked there. They dug through three underground streams and poured molten copper for the outer coffin, and the tomb was filled with models of palaces, pavilions and offices as well as ine vessels, precious stones and rarities. Craftsmen were ordered to fix up crossbows so that any thief breaking in would be shot. All the country’s streams, the Yellow River and the Yangtze were reproduced in mercury and by some mechanical means made to flow into a miniature ocean. The heavenly constellations were above and the regions of the earth below. The candles were made of man-fish oil to ensure them burning for the longest possible time.” Tests on the soil of the tomb mound have shown unusually high concentrations of mercury, which suggests some truth in this account. Modern archaeologists estimate that the Emperor’s burial chamber itself is at least 30 metres and perhaps as much as 40 metres below the original ground level. They also believe that above the burial chamber itself there were terraced buildings with galleries and towers intended for the Emperor to ascend from his underground palace to look out over his empire. There are no plans at the moment to excavate the tomb mound and it is possible that it may never be opened. Instead, as technology advances, it may be possible to explore it by other means, and the First Emperor will continue to lie there undisturbed. Weapons and armour of the Terracotta army When you look at the figures in the exhibition and at photographs of the site itself, you will notice that none of the soldiers carry weapons. However some of their postures clearly indicate that originally they did. It is likely hat many of the weapons were taken away when the pits were looted by warlords not long after the fall of the Qin. Nonetheless, up to 40,000 bronze weapons and, principally, arrowheads have been found in Pit 1. Many of the swords that have been found are still razor-sharp, protected by a coating of oxidised chrome indicating very sophisticated manufacturing techniques. Some also carry inscriptions giving dates of manufacture between 245 and 228 BC which means they were actual weapons that must have been used in warfare before they were buried with the Terracotta Army.The most important weapon of the Qin army was the chariot, of which four types have been excavated. They were all originally made of wood with bronze fittings and had a door at the back for mounting and dismounting. The types differ in size and weight, and therefore in mobility and strategic use. Type 1 is the heavy command chariot used by middle and lower ranking officers who would have had a driver and a charioteer armed with a dagger-axe (see below) on a shaft up to almost 4 metres long. Type 2 is lighter and the main war-chariot with a driver flanked by two charioteers similarly armed. Type 3 is a heavy reserve chariot, and Type 4 a smaller lighter ‘rapid response’ chariot equipped with a driver and only one armed charioteer. In battle the fighting chariots formed pairs at the head of a unit of infantry.As mentioned above, the principal weapon of the charioteer was the ge or dagger-axe. This weapon already had a long history in Bronze Age Chinese warfare and was an L-shaped bronze blade mounted on a long shaft used for sweeping and hooking at the enemy. Infantrymen also carried ge on shorter shafts, ji or halberds, similar to the ge but with a spear tip extending from the top of the axe, and spears and lances. For close fighting and defence, both charioteers and infantrymen carried double-edged straight swords slightly under a metre in length. Swords were carried slung across the back rather than at the waist. The archers were equipped with crossbows with sophisticated trigger mechanisms capable of firing arrows over 800 metres.It is not clear what weapons the cavalry carried since none have been found with them. The armour which you see on many of the warriors was made up of small panels of leather. However, ordinary infantrymen wore no armour at all. Officers wore armour of different length and design according to rank. The tiles that make up the armour of high-ranking officers were smaller and would have been richly decorated with ribbons, straps and buttons. Charioteers wore long armour for extra protection, and cavalrymen shorter, lighter armour for maximum mobility. No helmets have been found in the pits, though it known from other evidence that they were standard equipment. It is suggested that this is because the army is shown in readiness, waiting for orders, rather than in actual battle formation. The British Museum has three websites on which further information and activities about Chinese history can be found: Other Resources: |
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@ 2007 eBrav Limited |
