Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor

The Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor (Qin Shi Huang) (Chinese: 秦始皇陵; pinyin:
Qínshǐhuáng Líng) is located in Lintong District, Xi'an, Shaanxi province of China. This
mausoleum was constructed over 38 years, from 246 to 208 BC, and is situated underneath a
76-meter-tall tomb mound shaped like a truncated pyramid. The layout of the mausoleum is
modeled on the Qin capital Xianyang, divided into inner and outer cities. The circumference of
the inner city is 2.5 km (1.55 miles) and the outer is 6.3 km (3.9 miles). The tomb is located in
the southwest of the inner city and faces east. The main tomb chamber housing the coffin and
burial artifacts is the core of the architectural complex of the mausoleum.The tomb itself has
not yet been excavated. Archaeological explorations currently concentrate on various sites of
the extensive necropolis surrounding the tomb, including the Terracotta Army to the east of the
tomb mound. The Terracotta Army served as a garrison to the mausoleum and has yet to be
completely excavated.

History
Work on the mausoleum began soon after Emperor Qin ascended the throne in 246 BC when he
was still aged 13, although its full-scale construction only started after he had conquered the six
other major states and unified China in 221 BC. The source of the account of the construction of
the mausoleum and its description came from Sima Qian in chapter six of his Records of the
Grand Historian, which contains the biography of Qin Shi Huang:

In the ninth month, the First Emperor was interred at Mount Li. When the First Emperor first
came to the throne, the digging and preparation work began at Mount Li. Later, when he had
unified his empire, 700,000 men were sent there from all over his empire. They dug through
three layers of groundwater, and poured in bronze for the outer coffin. Palaces and scenic
towers for a hundred officials were constructed, and the tomb was filled with rare artifacts and
wonderful treasure. Craftsmen were ordered to make crossbows and arrows primed to shoot at
anyone who enters the tomb. Mercury was used to simulate the hundred rivers, the Yangtze
and Yellow River, and the great sea, and set to flow mechanically. Above were representation of
the heavenly constellations, below, the features of the land. Candles were made from fat of
"man-fish", which is calculated to burn and not extinguish for a long time. The Second Emperor
said: "It would be inappropriate for the concubines of the late emperor who have no sons to be
out free", ordered that they should accompany the dead, and a great many died. After the
burial, it was suggested that it would be a serious breach if the craftsmen who constructed the
mechanical devices and knew of its treasures were to divulge those secrets. Therefore after the
funeral ceremonies had completed and the treasures hidden away, the inner passageway was
blocked, and the outer gate lowered, immediately trapping all the workers and craftsmen inside.
None could escape. Trees and vegetations were then planted on the tomb mound such that it
resembles a hill.

Some scholars believe that the claim of having "dug through three layers of groundwater" to be
figurative. It is also uncertain what the "man-fish" in the text refers to, interpretation of the
term varies from whale to walrus and other aquatic animals such as giant salamander.
Before the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor was completed, a peasant rebellion broke out
during the late Qin dynasty. Zhang Han redeployed all the 700,000 people building the
mausoleum to suppress the rebellion, so the construction of the mausoleum ceased. After Xiang
Yu entered Xianyang, he is said to have looted the tomb. Afterwards, it is said that a shepherd
unintentionally burnt down the tomb. The story goes that he went into the dug pit of the
mausoleum, dug by Xiang Yu, to look for his sheep with a torch in his hand, and a fire was
started, burning away the tomb structures. No solid evidence of the destruction of the tomb has
been found, although evidence of fire damage has been found in the pits housing the Terracotta
Army. Some scholars think that the mausoleum did not suffer any large-scale destruction.In
1987, the mausoleum, including the Terracotta Warriors

Discovery of the terracotta warriors

 General view of the pit n°1 in the museum of Xi'an

The first fragments of warriors and bronze arrowheads were

discovered by Yang Zhifa, his five brothers, and Wang Puzhi who
were digging a well in March 1974 in Xiyang, a village of the
Lintong county. At a depth of around two meters, they found
hardened dirt, then red earthenware, fragments of terracotta,
bronze arrowheads and terracotta bricks. Yang Zhifa threw the
fragments of terracotta in the corner of the field, and collected the arrowheads to sell them to a
commercial agency. Other villagers took terracotta bricks to make pillows. A manager in charge
of the hydraulic works, Fang Shumiao, saw the objects found and suggested to the villagers that
they sell them to the cultural centre of the district. Yang Zhifa received, for two carts of
fragments of what would turn out to be terracotta warriors, the amount of 10 yuans.Zhao
Kangmin, responsible for the cultural centre, then came to the village and bought everything
that the villagers uncovered, as well as re-purchasing the arrowheads sold to the commercial
agency.

In May 1974, a team of archaeologists from Shaanxi went to the site to undertake the first
excavations of what would later be designated Pit 1. In May 1976, Pit 2 was discovered by
drilling and in July the Pit 3. The excavations over an area of 20,000 square meters produced
about 7,000 statues of terracotta warriors and horses, and about a hundred wooden battle
chariots and numerous weapons. Large structures have been erected to protect the pits; the
first was finished in 1979. A larger necropolis of six hundred pits have been uncovered by 2008.
Some pits were found a few kilometers away from the mound of the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi
Huang.

Archaeological studies
 Chariot found outside of the tomb mound

The necropolis complex of Qin Shi Huang is a microcosm of the

Emperor's empire and palace, with the tomb mound at the
center. There are two walls, the inner and outer walls,
surrounding the tomb mound, and a number of pits containing
figures and artifacts were found inside and outside the walls. To
the west inside the inner wall were found bronze chariots and horses. Inside the inner wall were
also found terracotta figures of courtiers and bureaucrats who served the Emperor. Outside of
the inner wall but inside the outer wall, pits with terracotta figures of entertainers and
strongmen, as well as a pit containing a stone suit of armour were found. To the north of the
outer wall were found the imperial park with bronze cranes, swan and ducks with groups of
musicians. Outside the outer walls were also found imperial stables where real horses were
buried with terracotta figures of grooms kneeling beside them. To the west were found mass
burial grounds for the labourers forced to build the complex. The Terracotta Army is about
1.5 km east of the tomb mound.

 The Terracotta Warriors

The tomb mound itself at present remains largely unexcavated, but a

number of techniques were used to explore the site. The underground
palace has been located at the center of the mound. Archaeological
survey and magnetic anomaly studies indicate a 4-meter high perimeter
wall, measuring 460 meters north to south and 390 meters east to west,
which is made of bricks and serves as the wall of the underground
palace. On top is an enclosing wall made of rammed earth of 30–40
meters in height. There are sloping passageways leading to the four
walls. The west tomb passage is linked to a pit where the bronze chariots and horses were
found. The tomb chamber itself is 80 meters long east to west, 50 meters north to south, and is
about 15 meters high. There are, however, disagreements among the academic community
about the depth at which the palace lies, estimates ranging from 20 meters to 50 meters.

According to the scientific exploration and partial excavation, a significant amount of metal is
present in the underground palace which has a very good drainage system. Sima Qian's text
indicates that during its construction the tomb may have reached groundwater, and the water
table is estimated to be at a depth of 30 meters. An underground dam and drainage system was
discovered in 2000 and the tomb appeared not to have been flooded by the groundwater.
Anomalously high levels of mercury in the area of the tomb mound have been detected, which
gives credence to the Sima Qian's account that mercury was used to simulate waterways and
the seas in the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor. However, some scholars believe that if the
underground palace is excavated, the mercury would quickly volatilize. "A Preliminary Study of
Mercury Buried in the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor", an article published in Archaeology
magazine, Volume 7, says that during the measuring of soil mercury content, one measured
point reached 1440 parts per billion; the rest of 53 points reached an average content of around
205 ppb. There is also a claim that the mercury content is actually a result of local industrial
pollution. It is reported in "Lintong County Annals" that from 1978 to 1980, according to general
investigation on workers involved with benzene, mercury and lead, 1193 people from 21
factories were found poisoned."

In December 2012, it was announced that the remains of an "imperial palace" of great size had
been found at the site. Based on its foundations, the courtyard-style palace was estimated to be
690 meters long and 250 meters wide, covering an area of 170,000 square meters, which is
nearly a quarter of the size of the Forbidden City in Beijing. The palace included 18 courtyard
houses and a main building that overlooked the houses. The archaeologists have been
excavating the foundations since 2010 and have found walls, gates, stone roads, pottery shards
and some brickwork
Opinions on possible excavation
Beginning in 1976, various scholars proposed to explore the underground palace, citing the
following main reasons:

 The Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor is in a seismic zone, so underground cultural
relics need to be unearthed for protection;
 to develop tourism; and
 to prevent grave robbery.

However, opponents of such excavations hold that China's current technology is not able to deal
with the large scale of the underground palace yet. For example, in the case of the Terracotta
Army, the archaeologists were initially unable to preserve the coat of paint on the surface of
terracotta figures, which resulted in the rapid shedding of their painted decoration when
exposed to air. The State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) indicated that research and
evaluations should be conducted first so as to develop a protection plan for the underground
palace, and rejected a proposal by archaeologists to excavate another tomb close by thought to
belong to the Emperor's grandson over fears of possible damage to the main mausoleum itself
 Terracotta Army
The Terracotta Army (simplified Chinese: 兵马俑; traditional Chinese: 兵馬俑; literally: "Soldier-
and-horse funerary statues") is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin
Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in
210–209 BCE and whose purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife.

The figures, dating from approximately the late third century BCE, were discovered in 1974 by
local farmers in Lintong District, Xi'an, Shaanxi province. The figures vary in height according to
their roles, with the tallest being the generals. The figures include warriors, chariots and horses.
Estimates from 2007 were that the three pits containing the Terracotta Army held more than
8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which
remained buried in the pits nearby Qin Shi Huang's mausoleum. Other terracotta non-military
figures were found in other pits, including officials, acrobats, strongmen and musicians.

History
 The mound where the tomb is located

The construction of the tomb was described by historian Sima

Qian (145–90 BCE) in his most noted work Shiji, written a century
after the mausoleum's completion. Work on the mausoleum
began in 246 BCE soon after Emperor Qin (then aged 13) ascended
the throne, and the project eventually involved 700,000 workers.
Geographer Li Daoyuan, writing six centuries after the First Emperor's death, recorded in Shui
Jing Zhu that Mount Li was a favoured location due to its auspicious geology, "famed for its jade
mines, its northern side was rich in gold, and its southern side rich in beautiful jade; the First
Emperor, covetous of his fine reputation, therefore chose to be buried there".Sima Qian wrote
that the First Emperor was buried with palaces, towers, officials, valuable artifacts and
wondrous objects. According to this account, 100 flowing rivers were simulated using mercury,
and above them the ceiling was decorated with heavenly bodies below which were the features
of the land. Some translations of this passage refer to "models" or "imitations"; however, those
words were not used in the original text, which makes no mention of the terracotta army.High
levels of mercury were found in the soil of the tomb mound, giving credence to Sima Qian's
account. Later historical accounts suggested that the tomb had been looted by Xiang Yu, a
contender for the throne after the death of the first emperor. However, there are indications
that the tomb may not have been plundered.

Discovery
The Terracotta Army was discovered on 29 March 1974 by farmers digging a water well
approximately 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) east of the Qin Emperor's tomb mound at Mount Li
(Lishan), a region riddled with underground springs and watercourses. For centuries, occasional
reports mentioned pieces of terracotta figures and fragments of the Qin necropolis – roofing
tiles, bricks and chunks of masonry. This discovery prompted Chinese archaeologists to
investigate, revealing the largest pottery figurine group ever found in China.
A museum complex has since been constructed over the area, with the largest pit enclosed
within with a large structure.

Necropolis
 View of the Terracotta Army

The Terracotta Army is part of a much larger necropolis. Ground-

penetrating radar and core sampling have measured the area to
be approximately 98 square kilometers (38 square miles).

The necropolis was constructed as a microcosm of the emperor's

imperial palace or compound, and covers a large area around the
tomb mound of the first emperor. The earthen tomb mound is located at the foot of Mount Li
and built in a pyramidal shape, and is surrounded by two solidly built rammed earth walls with
gateway entrances. The necropolis consists of several offices, halls, stables, other structures as
well as an imperial park placed around the tomb mound.

The warriors stand guard to the east of the tomb. Up to 5 metres (16 ft) of reddish, sandy soil
had accumulated over the site in the two millennia following its construction, but archaeologists
found evidence of earlier disturbances at the site. During the excavations near the Mount Li
burial mound, archaeologists found several graves dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, where diggers had apparently struck terracotta fragments. These were discarded as
worthless and used along with soil to back fill the excavations.

Tomb
The tomb appears to be a hermetically sealed space roughly the size of a football pitch (c. 100 ×
75 m). The tomb remains unopened, possibly due to concerns over preservation of its artifacts.
For example, after the excavation of the Terracotta Army, the painted surface present on some
terracotta figures began to flake and fade. The lacquer covering the paint can curl in fifteen
seconds once exposed to Xi'an's dry air and can flake off in just four minutes.

Warrior figures
 A terracotta soldier with his horse

Types and appearance

The terracotta figures are life-sized. They vary in height, uniform, and
hairstyle in accordance with rank. Their faces appear to be different for
each individual figure; scholars, however, have identified 10 basic face
shapes. The figures are of these general types: armored warriors;
unarmored infantrymen; cavalrymen who wear a pillbox hat; helmeted
drivers of chariots with more armor protection; spear-carrying
charioteers; kneeling archers who are armored; standing archers who are not; as well as
generals and other lower-ranking officers. There are, however, many variations in the uniforms
within the ranks: for example, some may wear shin pads while others not; they may wear either
long or short trousers, some of which may be padded; and their body armors vary depending on
rank, function, and position in formation. There are also terracotta horses placed among the
warrior figures.

 Recreated figures of an archer and an officer, showing how

they would have looked when painted
Originally, the figures were painted with bright pigments, variously
coloured pink, red, green, blue, black, brown, white and lilac. The
coloured lacquer finish and individual facial features would have
given the figures a realistic feel. However, much of the colour
coating had flaked off or become greatly faded.

Some scholars have speculated a possible Hellenistic link to these sculptures, because of the
lack of life-sized and realistic sculptures before the Qin dynasty. They argued that potential
Greek influence is particularly evident in some terracotta figures such as those of acrobats, as
well as the technique used for casting bronze sculptures. However, this idea is disputed by
Chinese scholars who pointed out that there is "no substantial evidence at all" for contact
between ancient Greeks and Chinese builders of the tomb.

Construction
The terracotta army figures were manufactured in workshops by government laborers and local
craftsmen using local materials. Heads, arms, legs, and torsos were created separately and then
assembled by luting the pieces together. When completed, the terracotta figures were placed in
the pits in precise military formation according to rank and duty.

The faces were created using molds, and at least ten face molds may have been used. Clay was
then added after assembly to provide individual facial features to make each figure appear
different. It is believed that the warriors' legs were made in much the same way that terracotta
drainage pipes were manufactured at the time. This would classify the process as assembly line
production, with specific parts manufactured and assembled after being fired, as opposed to
crafting one solid piece and subsequently firing it. In those times of tight imperial control, each
workshop was required to inscribe its name on items produced to ensure quality control. This
has aided modern historians in verifying which workshops were commandeered to make tiles
and other mundane items for the terracotta army.

Weaponry
 Bronze jian sword with chrome plating

Most of the figures originally held real weapons such as spears,

swords, or crossbows, and the use of actual weapons would have
increased the figures' realism. Most of the original weapons were
looted shortly after the creation of the army, or have rotted away. Nevertheless, many weapons
such as swords, spears, lances, battle-axes, scimitars, shields, crossbows, and arrowheads have
been found in the pits. Over 40,000 bronze items of weaponry have been recovered from the
pits, most of them arrowheads which are usually found in bundles of 100 units. Studies of these
arrowheads suggests that they were produced in small units of self-sufficient, autonomous
workshops that produced finished items in a production process referred to as cellular
production or Toyotism. There are also hundreds of crossbow triggers, and smaller numbers of
other weapons such as bronze swords, and daggers.

 Stone armor suit on display in the National

Geographic Museum.

Some of these weapons, such as the swords, are sharp and were coated with a 10–15
micrometer layer of chromium dioxide that kept the swords rust-free for 2,000 years. The
swords contain an alloy of copper, tin, and other elements including nickel, magnesium, and
cobalt.Some carry inscriptions that date their manufacture to between 245 and 228 BCE,
indicating that they were used as weapons before their burials.

An important element of the army is the chariot, of which four types have been found. In battle
the fighting chariots formed pairs at the head of a unit of infantry. The principal weapon of the
charioteers was the ge or dagger-axe, an L-shaped bronze blade mounted on a long shaft and
used for sweeping and hooking at the enemy. Infantrymen also carried ge on shorter shafts, ji or
halberds and spears and lances. For close fighting and defence, both charioteers and
infantrymen carried double-edged straight swords. The archers carried crossbows, which have
sophisticated trigger mechanisms and are capable of shooting arrows farther than 800 metres
(2,600 ft).

Scientific research
In 2007, scientists at Stanford University and the Advanced Light Source facility in Berkeley,
California reported that powder diffraction experiments combined with energy-dispersive X-ray
spectroscopy and micro-X-ray fluorescence analysis showed that the process of producing
terracotta figures colored with Chinese purple dye consisting of barium copper silicate was
derived from the knowledge gained by Taoist alchemists in their attempts to synthesize jade
ornaments.

Since 2006, an international team of researchers at the UCL Institute of Archaeology have been
using analytical chemistry techniques to uncover more details about the production techniques
employed in the creation of the Terracotta Army. Using X-ray fluorescence spectrometry of
40,000 bronze arrowheads bundled in groups of 100, the researchers reported that the
arrowheads within a single bundle formed a relatively tight cluster that was different from other
bundles. In addition, the presence or absence of metal impurities was consistent within bundles.
Based on the arrows’ chemical compositions, the researchers concluded that a cellular
manufacturing system similar to the one used in a modern Toyota factory, as opposed to a
continuous assembly line in the early days of automobile industry, was employed.

Grinding and polishing marks visible under a scanning electron microscope provide evidence for
the earliest industrial use of lathes for polishing.