Hi, Little Fox readers! It's me, Mellissa, again. My little brother just asked me to take a picture of his plastic army soldiers. He has them lined up outside in straight long rows. They look kind of like the cool landmark Mr. Fay told us about this week: the Terra-cotta Army in China's Shaanxi province.
The Terra-cotta soldiers are a lot bigger than my brother's plastic toys, though. They're life-size and made of clay. In fact, this ancient massive army is considered one of the world's greatest archaeological discoveries and was even declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.
The Terra-cotta Army was created during the reign of Emperor Qin Shihuangdi. In 221 B.C., Qin Shihuangdi—who was just a king at the time—managed to conquer and unify China's warring states and proclaim himself China's first emperor. He was a brutal leader who had lots of people executed and trusted almost no one. But he also accomplished some pretty impressive things. He standardized the area's weights and measures, laws, written language, weapons—even the length of axles on carts! Under his orders new fortresses were constructed, along with a series of defensive walls that eventually became the Great Wall of China. In addition, he instructed workers to build an underground funerary compound for himself. That's where he would be buried after death.
Mr. Fay told us that Qin Shihuangdi's tomb was huge—about fifty square kilometers! According to a famous historian, it contained a small-scale model of the world with miniature palaces, trees carved from jade, even flowing rivers and an ocean. Mercury was used for the water, and pearls were attached to the ceiling to represent stars. In order to protect the tomb from robbers, workers rigged crossbows that would automatically fire if anyone entered.
Before Qin Shihuangdi's reign, it was customary for a ruler's entire royal court to be slaughtered and buried with him, so that they could continue to serve him in the afterlife. However, this practice had long been abandoned by the emperor's time, so he decided to use clay statues instead. Qin Shihuangdi also ordered his workers to build a clay army that could guard his tomb after he died—this became the Terra-cotta army.
The army includes a huge assortment of soldiers—at least eight thousand infantry, cavalry, archers, officers—all in battle formation and organized according to military rank. The statues' bodies are pretty similar, but each warrior has unique details such as hats, mustaches, shoes, and hair. While some of the warriors look fierce and ready for battle, others appear pretty calm. They were originally armed with real bronze weapons like swords, spears, and axes. Some are even crouching, ready to fire the working crossbows they once held. In addition to the warriors, there are also life-size horses and chariots.
Some scholars have assumed that the statues are portraits of actual soldiers. It's more likely, however, that they don't represent specific people, but rather, all the various ethnic groups in China.
Approximately one thousand craftsmen worked for 11 years to make the statues from terra-cotta, a type of clay. All the soldiers' legs were cast in similar molds, but for the upper bodies and arms, different types of molds were used, to vary the soldiers' head and body shapes. After the body sections were pulled out of the molds, expert sculptors refined them, adding all sorts of minute details to make the statues look unique and lifelike.
And get this: every warrior has the name of the sculptor who made it. At first I assumed the artists were proud of their work and wanted to sign it. But Mr. Fay said they really did it so their work could be checked for quality. The emperor insisted that any statue that wasn't perfect had to be redone, or worse, he would have the sculptor—gulp—executed! Talk about pressure!
After all the carving was finished, the statues were dried in a kiln, and then coated in a thick layer of lacquer. Next workers painted them in rich, bright colors.
The finished statues were carried down ramps to narrow underground halls, where they were put into position. Then the halls were sealed off and hidden from view.
For over two thousand years, nobody saw the Terra-cotta Army. In fact, it wasn't mentioned in historical texts, so nobody even knew it existed. Then in 1974 some peasants stumbled across fragments of a clay statue in the ground while digging a well. Government archaeologists began excavating the site, and discovered an enormous underground pit, containing thousands of the clay soldiers. Eventually more pits were found, each containing many soldiers and horses.
Excavation has continued at the site ever since the discovery of the Terra-cotta Army. The first three pits that were found have been enclosed in large buildings and are now the Museum of the Terracotta Army. What's really cool about this museum is that it's still a functioning archaeological site. So visitors to the museum can actually see the excavation process.
Unfortunately it hasn't been easy to safely dig up the Terra-cotta Army. When a statue is exposed to the air, the lacquer on its surface immediately shrinks and peels away from the clay, taking the pigment with it. Archaeologists unearthing these statues sometimes have just minutes to try to preserve the color before it's gone forever. Because of this and other difficulties, the excavation has been a very slow process; as of 2012 archaeologists hadn't done any excavation of the tomb itself—they're afraid they might damage it.
Well, I have to get going now. My brother wants me to take that picture of his army before he knocks it down with his remote control army tank!
See you next week!