Treasures of Ancient China

Rising to Life: Treasures of Ancient China

Photograph by O. Louis Mazzatenta
They make an odd couple, the archaeologist and the statue. Duan Qingbo stands in the restoration workshop of the Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses Museum, looking up at a statue he helped excavate in 1999. The terra-cotta figure is more than 2,200 years old, its life-size, naked upper body is powerfully muscled, and it has no head. Duan is 36 years old, his build is slight, and he has a face like an open book—quick-moving eyes and an easy smile. He laughs a lot. He is never far from a Stone Forest cigarette. Dwarfed by the massive figure at his side, he grins and says, "He's like Mike Tyson."

The statue absorbs the cultural non sequitur without comment. Silence and mystery compose his aura—nobody knows exactly what this statue represents, what the object is that he presses against his potbelly. The few known facts about the figure are little more than clues: It is the earliest example ever found in China of life-size statuary that shows the human form, apart from the face, in realistic detail, and it is part of a startling collection of new discoveries recently unearthed near the tomb mound of Qin Shi Huang Di, the first emperor to unify China under one dynasty, the Qin. In a burial complex previously best known for its regimented terra-cotta army, the potbellied statue is remarkably out of step—a mostly unclothed, nonmilitary figure whose head has been destroyed.

But like any good archaeologist, Duan isn't intimidated by uncertainties. Rather than guess at riddles, he simply points at what he sees—the bulge of a triceps, the subtle ripple of a latissimus dorsi—and the mystery fades away into awe. "Look at those muscles and bones," he says softly. "Most people have thought Chinese sculptors at that time didn't portray the human body as it really is."

For the past week I've been in Xian, hoping to gain a sense of the early stages of China's imperial history. This part of today's Shaanxi Province was where the first two imperial dynasties made their capitals, taking advantage of the natural defenses of the Huang (Yellow) River to the east and the Qin Ling Mountains to the south. The Qin ruled here from 221 to 207 b.c., and their collapse was followed by the rise of the Western Han dynasty, which ruled from 206 b.c. to a.d. 9.

Today these dynasties are being explored by excavations of two imperial tomb complexes, those of Qin Shi Huang Di and Han Jing Di, the fourth emperor of the Western Han, who ruled from 157 to 141 b.c. Because they saw the afterlife as a continuation of life on Earth, archaeology here is like dusting off a window to the past—a vision of what mattered to these rulers and their cultures.

Qin Shi Huang Di and Han Jing Di make another odd couple: a radical reformer, usually labeled a tyrant, whose dynasty collapsed only four years after his death, and a cautious ruler who relied in part on Taoist discretion to help solidify the power of a clan that reigned for more than four centuries. (After the Western Han collapsed, the same family reestablished the dynasty at a new capital and ruled as the Eastern Han from a.d. 25 to 220.)

Despite these two emperors' contrasts, they are nowadays linked by archaeology because no other imperial tomb complexes in the Xian region have been so extensively excavated. And their reigns span what may have been the most formative period in Chinese history, when a collection of warring kingdoms united into a single country with a strong imperial tradition. The Qin introduced this revolutionary concept of empire, and then the Han imbued it with a sense of tradition and order, setting the tone for more than 2,000 years of imperial rule.

Qin Shi Huang Di's achievement of a unified China has come to be represented by the more than 1,500 terra-cotta warriors and horses excavated since 1974, when a group of peasants stumbled upon a pit of statues while digging a well. Designed to accompany Qin Shi Huang Di in the afterlife, the regimented figures reflect the ruler's military strength. But the massive army, estimated to be a total of 8,000 pieces, occupies only a fraction of the largely unexcavated tomb complex, which extends over 22 square miles (57 square kilometers) and is said to have required a labor force of 700,000 to build.

One afternoon I climb to the top of the 250-foot (76-meter) high tumulus above the emperor's burial site. From the summit, low dusty hills roll northward toward the horizon; to the south, a green carpet of pomegranate trees leads to the foothills of the Li Mountains, whose blue-gray peaks are sharply shadowed by the setting sun. It's a beautiful scene—but I find myself thinking more about the unknown treasures that are buried beneath my feet. And I think about the path I took around the back of the tomb mound, where I stepped over shards of 2,200-year-old ceramic tiles that lie half-buried in the dust. There's so much history here that it literally rises out of the ground.

Recently archaeologists have been doing some additional prodding. Although officials say they won't open the tomb mound itself until they are satisfied that preservation techniques are up to the challenge, they have permitted extensive soil testing that has left the earth around the tomb pockmarked with tiny holes. Since 1998 the authorities have also granted permission for two small experimental excavations of pits 650 feet (200 meters) southeast of the mound. One of these digs uncovered 12 nonmilitary statues that had been smashed by vandals in the distant past.

Although all but one of the heads was damaged beyond repair, archaeologists have been able to reconstruct five statues, including the potbellied strongman. The statues might represent baixiyong—performers who entertained the court with acrobatics, singing, dancing, feats of strength, and sleight of hand. Similar statues of smaller size have been found in Han tombs, but never before have any been dated to the Qin. To experts these discoveries are at once exciting and sobering: a glimpse of something entirely unexpected but also a reminder of how little is actually known about the burial goods of Qin Shi Huang Di.

"We've realized there might be more varied figures in other pits," says Zhang Yinglan, vice-director of the museum's archaeological team. "These figures are concerned only with every-day life, while the others all have military aspects. The military ones are very stiff and formal, but these are so different."

Many of the newly unearthed figures are in motion. One appears to be in the act of lifting, another might be spinning something on his finger, and the potbellied statue may be using the object in his hands to grip a pole upon which an acrobat could perform. These figures suggest a lighter side of court life under Qin Shi Huang Di, but, most important, they represent a major artistic breakthrough in a culture whose traditional art never emphasized the anatomy of the human body.

"You wouldn't believe that they were Chinese if you didn't know where they'd come from," says Wang Tao, a lecturer in the department of art and archaeology at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies. He compares the statues' style to that of the ancient Greeks—and indeed these figures may reflect Qin cultural exchanges with non-Chinese peoples. Before unifying China, the state of Qin was on the western fringes of what would eventually become the empire, and Qin Shi Huang Di's ancestors were in contact with a number of foreign tribes whose art may have been influenced by interactions with ancient Greece.

The terra-cotta statues are also a powerful example of how archaeology can refine and sharpen views of history. The traditional view of Chinese history has stressed Qin Shi Huang Di's "unifications": standardization of the writing system, currency, weights and measures, and axle widths (to facilitate transportation). The emperor is also known for building the first version of the Great Wall. The dynasty name, pronounced "cheen," is probably the source of the English word for China. But despite their enormous impact, Qin Shi Huang Di and his state have been written off as not much better than barbarians.

"Qin has the same customs as the Rong and Di," complained an official of the neighboring state of Wei in 266 b.c., comparing the rising Qin state to barbarian tribes. "It has the heart of a tiger or a wolf.... It knows nothing about traditional mores, proper relationships, and virtuous conduct."

Over the centuries most Chinese historians have agreed, but the new discoveries suggest that the growing confidence of the Qin state may have allowed for the creative freedom to experiment with artistic concepts like realistic depiction of the human body. "Here we have a representation and an artistic language that's unique to this period," says Wang Tao. "And it was lost in later periods of Chinese art. It's like a rediscovery of something completely new."

One morning I visit Pits 1 and 2 of the Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses Museum with Liu Zhan-cheng, an archaeologist who has spent upwards of 20 years working at the site. Looking out over the first pit, I'm struck by the scene's regularity: the neat rows of more than a thousand regimented statues, their ranks divided by the carefully excavated compressed dirt walls of the pits.

But Liu knows that this order is something of a mirage. Most of the statues in this pit were damaged centuries ago by vandalism, fires, and moisture, leaving thousands of terra-cotta shards that had to be pieced together. Some damage was too great for even the most patient reconstruction. All the army's warriors were originally colored, but the Qin painting process involved applying pigments to a layer of lacquer that deteriorates in humid conditions. Most of the figures in Pit 1 lost their color long before archaeologists started work. And for the statues whose pigments survived the centuries, excavation proved to be too great a stress.