Terracotta warriors are about two meters tall and weigh over 250 kilograms. This type of sculpture was completely new in China and emerged suddenly. In the centuries before the First Emperor, there were changes in funeral practices. Around 550 BC human casualties were common. When the noble man died, the victims were placed in his mausoleum and thus followed him into the afterlife. If death was just a continuation of life, as the ancient Chinese believed, then any ruler had to take his court, wives and concubines, staff, slaves, wealth and property. In fact, evidence suggests that most subjects died voluntarily to accompany their dead leaders.
Terracotta army: soldiers of the first emperor of China
Chinese archaeologists have discovered numerous mass casualties in Qin State. Later, however, during the Warring States Period (475 BC-221 BC), large-scale sacrifices became impractical as labor was required for ongoing wars. As a result, instead of real people, the use of small funerary statues has become commonplace. But then, in the middle of the third century BC, Qin Shi Huang revolutionized the concept of funerary objects in his own mausoleum.
What inspired the First Emperor to create a full-sized terracotta army to be housed in his mausoleum in a perfect battle structure with regalia, horses and weapons? No one knows for sure, however, some experts have made compelling comparisons of Greek Hellenistic statues to terracotta soldiers. In fact, according to Sean and Colette Hemingway of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alexander the Great laid the groundwork for contacts between the Far East and the West when he conquered lands in Central Asia and India before he died in 323 BC.
Then, in the first half of the third century BC, after the collapse of Alexander's empire, "an influential dynasty of Greek and Macedonian origin ruled over a huge kingdom that stretched from Bactria to the Far East." During their reign, they erected many large statues.
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In any case, the First Emperor had grandiose visions of his mausoleum, and he devoted an enormous amount of resources and manpower to training groups of people who became masters in the production of Terracotta Soldiers. The first step in this process was the acquisition of raw materials. A joint effort of the University College London Institute of Archeology and Archaeologists from the Qin Shihuang Mausoleum Museum was an analysis of clay samples from terracotta soldiers. They suggested that the raw materials for the statues came from local sources in the surrounding area. The Terracotta Army is one of the top 10 mysterious archaeological discoveries in history.
The next step involved processing, probably at a centralized facility. Analysis of clay samples reveals a mixture of two types: dark clay and harder light clay. Perhaps this combination could have served an aesthetic or functional purpose. In addition, those responsible for processing added sand to the clay for several reasons. First, it reduced the "stickiness" of the clay and made it more plastic. Second, the sand made the clay more porous, which allowed the sculptures to dry before they went into the oven. In the end, the sand also resulted in a harder end product. After the processing division had completely prepared the clay, they distributed the materials to various workshops. Most likely, they were located near the mausoleum. Stamps and inscriptions found in hidden places of statues,pointed to the royal government site of Gong, which probably existed near the capital, or right in it.
Clay coils when creating soldiers
Clay wrap is a method in which the clay is first rubbed until it becomes soft. Then it forms into long rolls. For the bodies of the Terracotta Soldiers, Qin artists layered clay rolls upward from one reel to the next. By controlling the size of each coil, they were able to achieve a completely different body shape. Some soldiers have thinner torsos, while others have larger ones. After the sculptors finished their coils, they smoothed and cut out fine details for the armor and folds of clothing. The sculptors also used the reel method for the legs of some warriors, which have remained empty until now. The legs were cut by hand. The shape of the feet and legs of the warriors shows certain typological patterns, but it seems that they were also made by hand.
Because wet clay is very heavy, it can collapse under its own weight if too much is wound too quickly. Therefore, the bodies of the soldiers were created in small pieces, and each piece was allowed to dry for several days. The process was slow and tedious, and took up to one month for each soldier.
Press forms
Unlike the clay coil method, shapes played a relatively minor role. For body parts such as heads, some ears and hands, the craftsmen used various ready-made shapes. After they pressed the clay into the mold, they allowed the clay to solidify before joining the body parts together. On the heads of the terracotta soldiers, traces of two component parts are visible: one in front and one behind. The two pieces were tied behind the ear. Then the eyes, mouths, noses and facial hair were sculpted by hand. The braids and knots on the head were probably cast. Conversely, several of the heads were shaped for the face, including the facial features, while the back of the head was hand-made.
Firing a Terracotta Soldier in a Kiln
Once the pieces of clay were dry and sufficiently solidified, according to petrographic analysis, they were kiln fired. How and where this happened is still a mystery, since no one was able to finally determine the location of the furnace. However, most experts suggest that this happened very close to the last terracotta pits of the army. Additionally, some theories suggest that the artists created and fired soldiers at the same facility. Thus, it would eliminate the need to transport extremely heavy but fragile statues.
In the National Geographic documentary, China's Ghost Army, contemporary terracotta soldier manufacturer Zhang Bingruo proposed a theory. He thinks that the Qin painters used the cave houses that the locals created in the mountains. This could mitigate the extreme temperature fluctuations between summer and winter, which was important because the clay sculptures cannot withstand very high or very low temperatures during operation. The cave houses would maintain an ideal average temperature throughout the year. In addition, workers can close the cave house and turn it into a furnace, eliminating the need to move statues.
Terracotta Soldier coloring page
After firing in the oven, the warrior was ready for the last touch that brought him to life: coloring. The gray statues of terracotta warriors that we see today did not originally look like this. They wore bright colors. Underneath their shiny exteriors, artists applied a protective varnish known as qi, which was very valuable but difficult to obtain. Special collectors went to the forests of lacquer trees and collected the precious sap. However, they could only harvest about ten grams without killing the tree. Some experts believe that each terracotta warrior needed about 25 trees. For the entire army, they estimate up to 200,000 trees. As a base coat on terracotta soldiers, lacqi qi protected the underlying clay and prepared it for layers of polychrome paint that topped off each soldier.
The recently unearthed statues with polychrome surfaces are painted in vibrant colors - red, purple, pink, white, blue and green - from a range of inorganic minerals. There is also evidence of synthetic blue and magenta copper silicate barium pigments, the first synthetic paints used in China. Unfortunately, after the excavation, all the colors of the terracotta soldiers disappeared due to the drying of the qi-lacquer. As long as the soldiers remained in the wet mud, their colors remained intact. However, as soon as the varnish dried outdoors, all the original pigments chipped off and flaked off from the statue. Without effective conservation methods, earthworks have slowed down in recent decades. However, Chinese scientists are working closely with experts from the Technical University of Munich to develop methods,which will preserve the delicate colors after excavation. Hopefully in the future, the museum will have new terracotta soldiers with their original pigments.
The First Emperor was a formidable leader, and he killed those who opposed him, or caused discontent. However, he had a different side. Experts believe he possessed an unparalleled ability to organize large groups of people into highly structured enterprises. Qin Shi Huang standardized production, and his keen sense of labor specialization allowed his people to hone their skills to the level of mastery. In his intensified display of tyranny and splendor, the emperor quickly achieved lofty ambitions. Qin Shi Huang conquered and united all of China. He created a single system of writing, weights and measures for all his people. In addition, the first version of the Great Wall - a super-structure that binds the empire, and the largest mausoleum with thousands of realistic life-size terracotta soldiers - are all achievements of the First Chinese Emperor. Almost 2000 years later, his legacy lives on and surprises.
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