Terracotta Warriors

The terracotta warriors from the mausoleum of the first Qin emperor of China Qin Shih Huang (221-206 BC) of the Qin Dynasty are a marvel to behold. This massive monument to man’s desire to have a place in eternity[footnoteRef:2] is measured by the lifelike, life-size replications of Chinese soldiers, horses, chariots, musicians, officials, acrobats and warriors in three pits at the gravesite of the Qin Emperor. The Terracotta Army as it is known consists of some 8000 painted terracotta warriors along with hundreds of horses and chariots.[footnoteRef:3] It is the duplication of a real life-size army discovered and now stored in the Museum, Shaanxi, China, as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Terracotta Warriors symbolize the first Qin Emperor’s desire to be as great and fortified in the afterlife as he was in this world. However, the fact that they were submerged in wet soil for two thousand years, unknown to history shows the extent to which Shih Huang was successful in establishing an historical legacy. This paper will show how in spite of their disappearance from history, the terracotta warriors at the burial place of Shih Huang, first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, are a fitting remembrance of the one who unified China and began the era of empire in China. [2: Khan Academy, Terracotta Warriors from the mausoleum of the first Qin emperor of China. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/south-east-se-asia/china-art/a/terracotta-warriors-from-the-mausoleum-of-the-first-qin-emperor-of-china] [3: Jane Portal, The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army (Harvard University Press, 2007).]
The first point to make about the terracotta warriors is that these life-size replicas of human beings was not just about making soldiers—it was about constructing a city: a legacy in death for the one who had done so much in life. Shih Huang wanted a necropolis—a city of the dead—a city for his afterlife, where his soul could find repose. The terracotta warriors are just one aspect of this. As A. R. Williams writing for the National Geographic has shown, the true grandeur of the city of the terracotta warriors has only recently begun to be realized: nearly 40 miles of ground were covered below ground level in this city of the dead with parks, gardens, stables, offices, gold, silver, jewelry, halls and walls—all of it surrounding the vast tomb of the late emperor.[footnoteRef:4] On the eastern edge of the tomb are the thousands of terracotta warriors in rows after rows, hundreds upon hundreds of them, buried beneath 16 feet of soil—these giants of imperial grandeur have their own unique facial features, indicating that each one at least from the neck up was given a personality.[footnoteRef:5] [4: A. R. Williams, Discoveries May Rewrite History of China's Terra-Cotta Warriors, National Geographic, 2016. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/10/china-first-emperor-terra-cotta-warriors-tomb/?sf38672445=1] [5: Jonathan Clements, The First Emperor of China (Sutton, 2007).]
While the tomb of the emperor remains sealed, the site has been excavated in four main pits, and these pits reveal the nature of the achievements of the emperor in his lifetime. The first pit was discovered in 1974 and contains the majority of the soldiers, with some 6,000 numbered there. The pit itself is about 150,000 sq ft. Most of them are officers, some are generals, and rows of archers can also be seen. The second pit was discovered two years later and is 65,000 sq. ft. This pit contained chariots, horses, cavalrymen and officers, over a hundred archers kneeling, and 170 crossbowmen. The warriors in Pit 2 are some of the most exquisite in the lot. Pit 3 was discovered the same year and is much smaller at 5,500 sq. ft. In this pit can be found the high commanders of the terracotta warriors—all 68 of them face one another. A fourth pit was excavated but was found to be empty. While many weapons were stolen from the gravesite in the wake of the emperor’s death, many other weapons and artifacts remained that even after 2000 years still retain some of their lethal capacity, such was the preservative power of the mud that covered them. Crossbows, bronze arrows, and bronze swords were among the recovered weapons—including one powerful crossbow that had never been found before in China, though scholars had read of its existence.[footnoteRef:6] [6: Historic Mysteries, The Terracotta Army: Earthen Soldiers of China’s First Emperor, 2018. https://www.historicmysteries.com/terracotta-army/]
That is the particular noteworthy aspect of the terracotta warriors—they are not mere ornament and not solely representative of a conviction about the afterlife; they are also a testament of the accomplishments of Shih Huang, founder of the Qin dynasty. Shih Huang’s major victory was the unification of China, bringing so many different people of the Asian landmass together under one government. It was akin to Charlemagne’s founding of the Holy Roman Empire from the 8th to 9th century AD. Both conquered territories and demonstrated great prowess in combat. Yet their aim was not destruction but construction: they sought to unify, where other combatants have only sought to conquer and destroy. Shih Huang was so influential that though his dynasty would only last 15 years, his title of emperor would be borne by the following rulers for two thousand years. In this respect, he was like the first Caesar of ancient Rome. His terracotta warriors are a testament to his accomplishments in life—the fact that he was able to settle so much of China and retain power while doing so. The terracotta soldiers are a reflection in death of his authority in life.
However, they are also a symbol of the emperor’s defeat. Instead of ensuring that his legacy on earth would remain intact for more than a decade and a half, Shih Huang spent time focusing on the next world. Shih Huang was unable to make it so that his eldest son succeeded in his footsteps. The result of Shih Huang’s triumph was a infighting in his own housed: “One of the emperor’s many sons conspired with the chief eunuch to murder his oldest brother, the emperor’s presumed heir, and to seize the throne himself.”[footnoteRef:7] The silent soldiers standing around the tomb of Shih Huang have no statement on this matter. Yet, they say plenty in their poetic stillness and silence. Their armor and various features bespeak of the organization and industry that Shih Huang helped to cement in China. Their number and sheer size speak to the wonder that was his efforts at unification. Yet, the fact that they were buried for so many years—unknown to the world until the latter half of the 20th century when local Chinese farmers discovered the soldiers under the ground—shows that one of Shih Huang’s greatest achievements, his burial ground, went left unrecorded by history for two thousand years.[footnoteRef:8] [7: A. R. Williams, Discoveries May Rewrite History of China's Terra-Cotta Warriors, National Geographic, 2016. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/10/china-first-emperor-terra-cotta-warriors-tomb/?sf38672445=1] [8: Agnew, Neville (3 August 2010). Conservation of Ancient Sites on the Silk Road. Getty Publications, 214.]
The main reason the mausoleum of the first emperor was unknown to history was due to the fact that it did not resonate with the people he had conquered. His own family was not unified—and the power struggle that ensued only showed more of the shortcomings of the first emperor: the grave site was raided and the weapons that the terracotta warriors possessed to see Shih Huang’s spirit safely to the other side were stolen.[footnoteRef:9] Why? Shih Huang himself was no friend of the spirit of the Chinese people that had animated them till then. As the Han poet Jia Yi noted: [9: Ibid 214.]
Qin, from a tiny base, had become a great power, ruling the land and receiving homage from all quarters for a hundred odd years. Yet after they unified the land and secured themselves within the pass, a single common rustic could nevertheless challenge this empire... Why? Because the ruler lacked humaneness and rightness; because preserving power differs fundamentally from seizing power.[footnoteRef:10] [10: Sources of Chinese Tradition: Volume 1, From Earliest Times to 1600. Compiled by Wing-tsit Chan and Joseph Adler. Columbia University Press. 2000, 230.]
Shih Huang had not embraced the Confucianism of the Chinese people. He had executed Chinese Confucian academics, who were studied in the philosophy of Confucius. His antipathy towards the classics of Chinese scholarship was an extension of his focus on power and his own greatness. His focus on his own tomb represents his singleness of mind: he did not seek to elevate China but rather to unify it only so that he could be viewed as its emperor. There existed in him a lack of human refinement. As a result, his own family quickly came to ruin, and his tomb was raided rather than respected by the Chinese people. The fall of what was meant to be a great and final resting place was a reminder of what happens when a ruler disrespects his own people.
Originally, the warriors had been encased in wooden domiciles that prevented them from being mixed in with the mud: these were burned by the marauders who looted the emperor’s resting place following his death and the swirling chaos the resulted from the fratricide.[footnoteRef:11] The terracotta warriors were buried in the wet mud and stayed there—their paintings and the fine details of their craftsmanship preserved. It was only upon discovery and their exposure to the air that the pigments and the paint with which they were applied dried out, cracked and fell from the terracotta. Prior to this happening, the soldiers had been painted colorfully, with blue and red hues giving them a majestic appearance.[footnoteRef:12] [11: Agnew, Neville (3 August 2010). Conservation of Ancient Sites on the Silk Road. Getty Publications, 214.] [12: Ibid, 214.]
In spite of the quick fall of the Qin dynasty, the soldiers remained. Stripped of their weapons though they were in many cases (though not all), they stayed in place, preserved by the soil that encased them within the earth. While Shih Huang was remembered for thousands of years as only a tyrant,[footnoteRef:13] his work on his necropolis remained a secret, largely of his own doing—as he had the architects and craftsmen of the burial site executed that its secrets would not be disturbed.[footnoteRef:14] This was to ensure that his burial site remained undisturbed. The terracotta soldiers were there to guard his tomb and turn back those who sought access to his remains. As fearful and paranoid as the emperor was in life regarding assassinations, with his tomb he wished to take no chances. He wanted it to be completely protected. From men’s eyes for thousands of years it would be so, following the fall of his dynasty. [13: Tom Ambrose, (2010). The Nature of Despotism: From Caligula to Mugabe, the Making of Tyrants. New Holland.] [14: Jane Portal, The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army (Harvard University Press, 2007).]
In conclusion, Shih Huang could not protect his legacy on earth, but at least his 8000 terracotta soldiers could protect his sleeping ground in the afterlife. As of now, only four of the pits have been excavated, but there are a hundred more, indicating that this sprawling city of the dead was as impressive as any city Shih Huang oversaw in his life.[footnoteRef:15] Shih Huang spared no expense in the erecting of his final resting place: it truly is a monument to his power and his accomplishment. And yet, with the slaughter of its engineers that it might remain a secret, and with the pillaging of its contents, the final burial place and its disappearance serves more as an accusation of the first emperor’s inhuman aims than a signal of his grand achievements in the name of humanity and the Confucian ideals. [15: Agnew, Neville (3 August 2010). Conservation of Ancient Sites on the Silk Road. Getty Publications, 214.]
Bibliography
Agnew, Neville. Conservation of Ancient Sites on the Silk Road. Getty Publications,
2010.
Ambrose, Tom. The Nature of Despotism: From Caligula to Mugabe, the Making of
Tyrants. New Holland, 2010.
Clements, Jonathan. The First Emperor of China. Sutton, 2007.
Historic Mysteries, The Terracotta Army: Earthen Soldiers of China’s First Emperor,
2018. https://www.historicmysteries.com/terracotta-army/
Khan Academy, Terracotta Warriors from the mausoleum of the first Qin emperor
of China. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/south-east-se-asia/china-art/a/terracotta-warriors-from-the-mausoleum-of-the-first-qin-emperor-of-china
Portal, Jane. The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army. Harvard University Press,
2007.
Sources of Chinese Tradition: Volume 1, From Earliest Times to 1600. Compiled by
Wing-tsit Chan and Joseph Adler. Columbia University Press. 2000.
Williams, A. R. “Discoveries May Rewrite History of China's Terra-Cotta Warriors,”
National Geographic, 2016. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/10/china-first-emperor-terra-cotta-warriors-tomb/?sf38672445=1