Terracotta Army

Quinn: Hello and welcome back to Pictorial on Relay FM. I'm Quinn Rose, and I didn't go to art school, but that doesn't stop me from being a lifelong learner about art and art history,

Betty: And I'm Betty. I also didn't go to art school, but I am also a lifelong learner of art. And today I'm actually going to tell you about something that I saw when I was a little child. So to prove that I have always been interested in art.

Quinn: I am so excited to hear all about this.

Betty: Yeah. So I think a while ago we mentioned that we tend to talk quite a bit more about contemporary art on this podcast. Cause you know, we just happen to talk about stuff we like. So, you know, to give the ancient art a bit of airtime today I'm going to be talking about something that's more than 2000 years old. I think I might've mentioned on this podcast a few times that, so I grew up in China. Specifically, I grew up in this city called Xian which is in Shaanxi province. It's a really big city. I think it has more than 8 million people, but compared to some other cities in China it’s actually smaller. So probably not everyone has heard of this place, but usually when I mentioned this other fact, people are like, okay, I have heard of this place. Just outside of the city is this ancient monument called the Tomb of the Qin emperor, but it's more commonly known as the Terracotta Army. Have you heard of this place, Quinn?

Quinn: I have. I think I probably have the impression of this that just the average lay person has, which is I have heard of the terracotta army. I can for some reason visualize them in my mind. But I do not know anything about them.

Betty: Yeah. That's no problem. So what comes to mind for you when you think of it?

Quinn: When I just hear the phrase terracotta army, what I picture is just a whole fleet of statues of army figures. Like men, statues of—for some reason I think that they're not life-sized. I think they're, I believe that they're smaller than life size. Is that true?

Betty: I think they are mostly life size. Although I do think some figures are like smaller than what an average person is today, but maybe because people back then weren't as tall, I'm not entirely certain.

Quinn: Okay. That may just be an effect of the other half of my memory of this, which is that they're displayed like lower, like they're displayed that the you're not level with them. They’re like under you. And this is based on one, just sort of cultural osmosis. And two, I definitely have seen these or at least seen a portion of them when I was quite young. And I clearly don't remember them super well, but I remember enough that this was a thing that people were talking about, like adults in my life are talking about “we're going to see the terracotta army.” And I was like, cool. I don't really know what that means because I am a child.

Betty: Yeah, no, actually you are correct about the lower than, or displayed lower than eye level. So actually if you click on the first image I put in the show note, that is a pretty typical shot of the main exhibit hall in Xian of where you would go see the terracotta army. And you are, so if you look at the picture on the side, you see that people—it looks like you're in a big stadium and then there's people on all four sides looking down in a pit, except instead of seeing a sporting event, you're seeing all these statues. So probably the reason they appear smaller is because they're far away. And at certain angles, they almost look miniature. But then with this picture, when you have like a person to scale in the background, you can see it's, it's a pretty huge pit.

Quinn: That makes sense. That was even as I was saying, like, are they smaller than life size? I'm like, I think that's just a matter of perspective of my memory of seeing them and seeing pictures of them or whatever, but then I was like, that's probably not actually true, right? They're just, it's just the way that you’re at kind of a distance to them.

Betty: Yeah, for sure. And I just put a picture, like another picture just underneath that. And so that's an example of what you're probably remembering. And I looked this up, so in 2009 there was a traveling exhibition that went around I think most—I think it was only a North American show, but there might've been other incarnations in Europe and other places. But I remember seeing it at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. But it went to like a whole bunch of other cities in North America as well, specifically which ones I can't remember. But I think it started in San Francisco. So this is probably what you're remembering, cause this was I think one of the largest fleet of these figures that have ever left China and it also included some new discoveries that they had discovered within a few years of this show. And the reason it's significant is because the terracotta army is one of those exhibitions that is, the museum is in situ as in where they discovered it, they never moved it. They just dug around it, revealed it and built a building over top of it. Like as in instead of taking things out of the tomb or wherever they discovered it and putting in a museum somewhere, it’s actually, it never left where it was buried. And for the longest time the Chinese government was very like, oh, we don't want these to leave. Cause you know, they're old and super fragile. And also we want them to be seen in their, you know, original, where they were. But, you know, through various reasons it was, they did allow some to travel. And so it was really significant because I think up until 2009, the only way to kind of see them, especially a bunch of them, was to go to China. To go to Xian, so nobody else could really see it until 2009, which was great, cause I think they’re really cool.

Quinn: That is really cool. And that's really cool how that was handled. I have so many questions, but I want to start with this just to clarify. How many statues are there in the whole thing and how many went traveling?

Betty: So first of all, not everything has been excavated. So of everything that has been excavated—the statistic I found was from 2007. I don't think they've done more, too much more since then. So at the time there are 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots, 520 horses, 150 cavalry horses, and a whole bunch of other things. Which I'll talk about in a little bit. But basically there are thousands and thousands of figures and I believe a few hundred went traveling. So like it's still a tiny portion of what you would actually see if you go to Xian. So I would recommend like, if anybody has seen the 2009 show, it is 10 to 100 fold in terms of immenseness when you actually go in person.

Quinn: Wow.

Betty: So I saw this show when I was like, so I lived about like a 30 minute drive from the site and I went when I was like seven. So this is a very long time ago, obviously. And you know, it was like, I was a kid, but I do have really vivid memories of going to it because I just remember going like, this is huge. And this is really cool. Obviously right now, like we're recording this in 2022 and you can't really go to China very easily. So, you know, if you don't already live in China, you're probably not going to be able to go anytime soon.  But in the future when things are different.

Quinn: This is like equality for the whole world, except for one specific region, we are all equal in our inability to access this.

Betty: Yeah, for sure. So yeah, I'll give you a bit of a background kind of on how this whole thing came to be. So this place, for the longest time I've known it as “兵马俑” (bing ma yong), which in mandarin literally means “soldier and horse tomb figures.”

Quinn: Perfect. Straight to the point.

Betty: Yeah, very very straight to the point. So like we mentioned, it's a really huge collection of thousands of terracotta sculptures. And it mostly depicts the armies of this dude named Qin Shi Huang, which means the first—oh, sorry. It means “Qin” comma "first ever.” And so he is or was technically the first emperor of China and he died in 210 BCE. So this is more than 2000 years ago. And this was an army that was built for him to surround his tomb and to commemorate him as a person. But also his military, like huge military that he developed through his lifetime. And just the guy who not only was very proud of his achievements, but also was like, I'm going to build the biggest army ever, even in death.

Quinn: Everything in modern art history is like, here's a person who is depressed and poor. And everything in ancient art history is like, here's this one guy who was extremely rich and powerful and he decided to just really go for it.

WHERE I LEFT OFF 9:50

Betty: Yeah, for sure. And it is, so I actually didn’t, or I may have learned these facts years ago when I was a kid, but I didn't really remember it until I kind of started researching for this episode. But I found out that apparently he actually started planning for this tomb when he was 13 years old.

Quinn: Oh, my God.

Betty: So he ascended to the throne of, so actually let me backtrack. So he was born in 259 BCE. At the time he was born into this kingdom called Qin and it wasn't all of what is China as we know it today, it's a small portion of China today. And at the time it was called the warring states period. Basically there were like seven or eight distinct states in that region that were all fighting with each other. And Qin was one of them and he ascended to the throne of Qin when he was 13 years old. And he immediately started planning for his death, which is kind of weird.

Quinn: I mean, I guess I appreciate that he had foresight, but it seems like a really young age to started thinking about it.

Betty: It's pretty weird, but it kind of makes a little bit sense then when you think of like what kind of person he became later. When he was like 38 at 221 BCE, he ended up merging seven warring states into one nation. And this is kind of, it's not, it's obviously not exactly China’s territory's today, but it's, you know, a pretty significant portion of it, which is why this guy is kind of credited as the first emperor of China. Because, you know, he was the one who united all these territories. Obviously he did it through force. He went and, you know, with his army and invaded and killed probably like millions of people is the estimate. So, you know, not very nice person, but…

Quinn: Oh yeah, he’s not the hero of this story.

Betty: No. So Qin Shi Huang is like, obviously that's the name he took when he became emperor and like his his birth name is Ying Zheng. But ever since he was 13, he was just the king of Qin, You know, he was—so as far as I know, he's the first person in this region to call himself not just king, but emperor. And so subsequent Chinese emperors, like all used emperor as the title instead of king, because he kinda set this precedent. And, but the other thing is like not only was he the first emperor he kind of did leave this legacy of imperialism and kind of like these central bureaucratic ruling styles that lasted from when he became emperor at like in, you know, in 221 BCE up until 1911, like there were obviously many, many different dynasties. So his dynasty only actually lasted for 15 years. Qin fell about four years after he died. Like his, his son did not know how to rule a country. So even though this was a really short-lived dynasty, like he set a precedent for just basically the way emperors and imperial governments would rule China for like the next 2000 years. So it isn't kind of, it isn't just about like unifying the territories. It really is kind of about him setting the tone for rest of China. And one could still argue China is still a very bureaucratic centralized nation today. So, you know, even though technically it's not an imperial nation anymore, it still has kind of those characters, one could argue.

Quinn: That's quite a legacy.

Betty: Yeah. And I think that's one of the reasons why, you know, his site to like studying the stuff that he built is really interesting to a lot of historians. So over this period of like 40 years, so he died when he was I think just around when he was 50 years old, I think he had just almost, or just turned 50. So he wasn't very old. Because he had been planning it since he was a kid. Apparently in this time there were about 720,000 artisans and builders and laborers who contributed to this complex because you know, he may have been the person who came up with the idea, he did not carry out any of the work, obviously.

Quinn: Oh, yeah. And I'm sure all of these people had humane working conditions and were paid for their labor.

Betty: Yeah, so I actually read this like horrifying fact, but it is not, it's not known for sure if this is the case. So a lot of the information about the Qin emperor's life came from this book written by this person from the Han dynasty about a hundred years later, his name is Qian Sima. And he, because it's the dynasty after Qin, they obviously were the ones who overthrew him. So this is a really unfavorable writing of him as a person. I mean, he probably was not a very nice person. He was responsible for the deaths of millions. But this writing was just like, basically just trashed him completely. According to this person, so when the artisans, when the people finished the main tomb, apparently he ordered that all of them be sealed inside so that they were basically just like left to die there because he was afraid that invading armies would figure out the location of his tomb and try to come pillage it, which they actually did. So his fear wasn't completely unfounded. It's just his solution is so everybody who's worked on the construction of my tomb, you will die with it so that you can't tell people where it is.

Quinn: Well, that sucks.

Betty: According to a historian who, you know, was writing a hundred years later. So not everything is totally accurate, but it's as close as we can get for someone who's lived 2000 or so years ago. 

Quinn: Yeah. It's like, it could be hearsay, but also it sounds in character, you know?

Betty: Yeah, for sure. After he died, he had passed, you know, the leadership onto his son who according to historians was just like really dumb and competent. And so the invading army basically took over within like four years. And so in this account by Qian Sima is apparently the Han army who invaded Xian did actually pillage some of the tombs. So word did get out where it was and part of it was actually raided. So even after discovering this, archeologists did find evidence of like parts of it was burned down and destroyed. And there were things that seem like it's missing. So, yeah. Unfortunately not everything survived, but a good portion of it did survive, which is good for us. But not good for all the people who died for no reason.

Quinn: Honestly, it's pretty amazing how much of it did survive, though.

Betty: Well, yeah, for sure. So we, we had known that this mausoleum, this tomb, this whatever existed for a thousands of years, because it was written in this book. And the book is actually called The Records of the Grand Historian. And so, and it was written, it was written one about like 140 BCE. So everybody knew it existed, but no one knew where it was for 2000 years. And until so in 1974 there were a bunch of farmers. So it's a guy named Yang Zhifa and his neighbor, Wang Puzhi, and his five brothers, they were digging for a well, and then they came across like what they thought to be like clay or terracotta pieces. And then they kind of like dug a bit more and they realized it was broken pieces of a clay figure. And they had no idea what it was at the time, but they basically, you know, just kind of told everybody they found these pretty cool, what looked like, you know, art that's pretty old, no idea. Didn't know how old it was cause I think at the time they sold it for like 10 Yuan, which is not very much. But then archeologists apparently got ahold of these and were like this is, this might be where this tomb is. In 1976, archeologists officially came and started digging and they eventually found hundreds and hundreds of pits. And so what you usually would see when you Google terracotta army is you're seeing pit one, which is the main pit where the vast majority of the figures that we've discovered. So if you click on a link that says pit one, that's what you would see of like the rows and rows of soldiers. And then there's the second pit, which is much smaller. And it has like calvary and infantry units and chariots. And this is where a bunch of the horses are. This one is one of those where they found evidence of plundering and burning down and pillaging because most of the figures were found broken. Like if you click on a picture, you'll find they're smashed. They don't have heads. And I read that this one, they're still excavating parts of it. And then the third pit is the smallest one and it only has 68 terracotta figures. And it's like a military command post. And it also has a bunch of figures without heads. So when you go see this exhibition, you would basically go to these three pits. Apparently there’s a pit four, but it's completely empty. And they think there was actually plans to build actually a much bigger army, but, you know, I guess he died and they were like, okay, I guess we're done now.

Quinn: Oh, wait. Okay, I have two things. One, I did not realize that they only uncovered this about 50 years ago. I thought it was earlier than that. That's wild because when you mentioned earlier, they haven’t, they're still uncovering stuff. I was like, wow, that's taking a while, but I guess it really hasn't.

Betty: Yeah, I know, they’ve been digging very slowly and very carefully for decades, but yeah, it wasn't, it really is a recent phenomenon. Like when my parents were born, these were not discovered yet.

Quinn: Wow. But my other thing is what is the deal with all of the missing heads? Is there a thing there or what?

Betty: Okay, so a really interesting thing about these figures is lower down on the show notes. I have a making of the terracotta warrior image. And this shows the various parts of the figure, like head torso, arms, legs, they were actually made separately and maybe by separate artisans and then they all were put together in the end. So either they never finished the heads or those just went missing. Or they fell off, you know, because of time. They would basically like make it in clay and then fire it. And then actually most of them were painted because similar to a lot of Greek and Roman statues like when they're discovered thousands of years later, all you see is like the stone, the rock or the clay. And we think that's what it was. But actually, when you, when archeologists inspect like the surfaces, they realize there's traces of paint. So there is actually a link I have which has recreated terracotta soldiers, which shows you like an idea of what they would have looked like when they were done like 2000 years ago. Obviously, almost all the colors have flaked off at this point. These were incredibly detailed and there were made in like separate locations.

Quinn: Okay. That explains so much because when I’m looking at these fixtures, and I was thinking, it's not that unusual to think that a lot of heads would have been damaged or knocked off at various points and in whatever process, whether before or after discovery. But the thing that was getting me is that the collars were all in place, but the heads are missing and I was like, how have they been all the heads got knocked off for the collars are still there so cleanly, but that makes sense if the head is made separately and either it never got attached or it comes off more cleanly than it would if it was actually just one piece from the beginning.

Betty: None of these were made, you know, with like machinery or anything sophisticated, as far as we know, they were all handmade. And so what's really cool is every single soldiers face is totally different. Just like how real people, you know, like are, have different faces. So like every face is unique. Like they, the artisans did use molds, but I think like the intricacies of the facial features were all hand-carved. So yeah, like everyone looks different and like, it really looks like a real army, frozen in time.

Quinn: That’s an incredible choice to have that attention to detail in customizing the faces when you are making so many and clearly they had some kind of uniform streamlined process if they're making these parts separately and assembling, you're like, oh, that's that such like an assembly line image, but then they're like, no, but every face is hand crafted to be different and not to be the same as that as the guy next to him. That's so interesting.

Betty: Yeah. So like, it really has, it's like a preserved time capsule of artwork, you know, from artisans 2000 years ago. But I think the other reason why it's really interesting to historians is that it has a lot of content about, you know, what life or people, or at least in the military would have been like back in the Qin dynasty, because historians have gotten so much information just about like clothing, hairstyles. There's a lot of weapons, like real weapons that were found. So there's like swords and daggers and all kinds of weaponry so we can study like what weapons they used back then. And then supposedly the hairstyle is apparently at the time, different hairstyles signified your rank in the military. So historians were able to actually know exactly what these hairstyles look like through these preserved figures. Because you know, there were no photos from back then.

Quinn: That is so handy. What a cool little way to be able to figure stuff out about the past.

Betty: Yeah, it's really great. And I think I also have a picture in there of two bronze carriages, or it might be, the picture might be of one of them, but they found these two broads carriages and they were, again, they're life size of like, you know, horses and carriages. And apparently it is one of the biggest and most well-preserved just pieces of artwork in general from the bronze age, like, or like of bronze ware in general in the world.

Quinn: I don't think I've ever seen an image of this carriage before anything really outside of the, the basic soldier figures which is a really cool to see some more—not that they aren't all extremely impressive, but a greater level of intricacy.

Betty: Within the last few decades, as they unearth more things, they did find a lot more than just like army people. They found these pits with like non-military figures. So there were like other government officials. Apparently there's lots of acrobats and musicians, and just kind of like just everyday people that you could find like in the king's palace—or sorry, at the emperor’s palace. So that was one of the features of this 2009 exhibition. It was to be like, hey, you know, this actually, this wasn't, it wasn't just military figures. There's so many other things. So it's kind of a time capsule of the emperor's palace buried in a tomb. The most exciting thing I think anyway about this tomb, which a lot of people don't actually know and I did know this because, you know, I went there and I was kind of told about this is the case. Most of this tomb have actually not been excavated yet.

Quinn: Oh. So not just some of it, most of it.

Betty: Yeah. So there's the last picture I have on there is called tomb map. What you'll see is on the bottom right-hand corner of this map, number six, is the terracotta army. So this is like the three major pits that I just mentioned, where they found pretty much all these like 8,000 statues and horses. To the west of it is this giant complex where they think Qin is buried. So where he's buried, this area has barely been touched. Like they know where it is. They have x-rays and sensors that archeologists use to detect what's down there. And they have an idea of like the size and shape, but it has not been touched at all.

Quinn: Oh my God. Wait, is it just a matter of time and resources or is there a reason that they haven't touched it?

Betty: There’s a few reasons. So time and resources is one of them, because as you can tell, if there were like 8,000 that were uncovered in just this tiny bit on the bottom right, the rest would take a lot more time. And back in 1976, China did not have the type of resources they do now. Today they probably could do this, but the reason they don't is because currently with technology or with what they think is going to happen, unearthing it will result in a lot of these figures disintegrating. So what happened is when the terracotta—when these soldiers were discovered and when archeologists started digging, some of the figures, when they first dug it up, actually had a lot of the paint on it.  Like they can, it's almost completely what it was 2000 years ago, but within like five minutes, the paint started to fall off and flake off.

Quinn: Oh my gosh.

Betty: Which is why, like, again, it's taking them decades to dig. Not because it's difficult to dig. It’s because it has to be in these such pristine conditions where they make sure they're digging with—like if you've ever see pictures of archeologists with the smallest picks, cause it's so fragile. One of the problems is, so Xian is actually really dry, I remember from my childhood. So it's also one of the, if it was in a different climate that might not actually happen, but because of the dry air, it, it makes it extra difficult to be able to preserve things that get exposed to oxygen. So the director of the museum, I found a quote where he said, and this was like recently, he said “I don't think we have very good scientific techniques to protect what we find in the underground palace. Especially if we come across things like paper, silk, textiles from plants and animals.” He said, “it would be a tragedy if these things were kept in perfect balance for 2000 years, and then we open it and they're gone.” So they think we still to this day don't have the technology or the ability to ensure that this can be preserved for generations onward. So they're waiting for a time in the future, supposedly, where we could uncover it.

Quinn: I am experiencing the feminine urge to become an archeologist and develop techniques to help uncover this space.

Betty: It's really, I think the exciting thing is there is still so much more to be discovered and still so much more work that can be done. Chances are even you and I are are not gonna, even if we can go to China and like see this, we're not going to see this mausoleum in our lifetimes. We'll see. Unless you become an archeologist Quinn, and figure out a way to preserve what we discover in there.

Quinn: Well, anything could happen, I guess.

Betty: So the other thing that's interesting, I found it and this is, this may be a secondary reason that they don't want to dig too soon or without being totally prepared. So I forgot to mention, so one of the reasons Qin wanted to build this army was because, even from an early age, he was obsessed with being immortal, like immortality, which is kind of ironic since he died when he was like 50. So like he built the army because he wanted to supposedly have like an army to protect him in the afterlife. Just like how he had it in his life life. But the other thing was like, he spent a lot of time getting people to discover like an elixir of immortality. And he was under the impression that drinking mercury would extend your life, which is probably he didn’t.

Quinn: Oh, no.

Betty: So in Sima Qian's book, so even though a lot of the historic facts, we're not exactly sure how accurate is it actually probably is pretty good, cause it was written in his book that the emperor was obsessed with mercury. When scientists did testing in the soil of where the tomb is, they found a tremendous high concentration of mercury. So the problem is so for the scientists who are working to excavate this, they could be exposed to mercury poisoning. It is really interesting because they do think that there is kind of like a mini, like microcosm of Xian, which at the time was known known as Xian Young, so they think there's like a miniature version of the city down there. We could just, if we could go in and see what's there, it really could be like, even more of a time capsule than what we've already discovered. So it is really exciting. But you and I can't go there to see it at all. And even the people there can't see it because they can't just start digging.

Quinn: Well, hopefully someday to be able to figure it out and be able to actually uncover this stuff while being able to preserve it. I have faith that eventually we'll develop the technology. So, one day.

Betty: Yeah, I agree. And I am glad in the meantime that they are being careful about it instead of just going ooh, let's see what's down there. Cause you know, like humans are curious and we just want to be there. So I'm glad archeologists exist to be like hold on.

Quinn: Do not open Pandora's box, put the box down.

Betty: Anyway yeah, so it was, it's kind of, it's been great to reminisce about this show that I saw many, many years ago. Hopefully I can see it again one day, but I am not holding my breath.

Quinn: Well, thanks so much for sharing this with me. I learned so much today about something that I had rattling around in the back of my brain with no actual information to latch on to. So this has been really cool. Also, before we end today, I just want to give everybody a heads up that not the next episode—next episode will be a normal topic brought to you by me. But two episodes from now, we are going to do a little movie club, TV club kind of thing on the Netflix mini-series “This is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist.” It's a four-part mini series, comes in in about a little under four hours. So if you want to just listen, we'll provide context on the episode, obviously, but if you want to watch it before that point and then just come join us for the discussion in two episodes, now’s your advanced warning to do that. Okay. Thanks everybody for listening to this episode today, you can find our show notes and links to all the great stuff that Betty talked about at relay.fm/pictorial. You can also follow us on Twitter or Instagram @PictorialPod. And if you'd like to follow me on Instagram, I'm @aspiringrobotfm. 

Betty: And if you want to follow me on Twitter or Instagram, I am @articulationsv and I am also on YouTube as ARTiculations. And speaking of YouTube, we also have a YouTube channel for Pictorial Podcast where we usually upload the video version of the audio podcast a few weeks after release. And you can take a look at all the interesting terracotta figures in this video, because chances are you won't be able to see it in person anytime soon. 

Quinn: Thanks for listening, art enthusiasts!