Ancient Relics, Ancient Instruments

MC: Welcome to Jade Nights. WA Museum Boola Bardip is proud to present this extraordinary exhibition about the life, legacy and afterlife of China’s first Emperor. Before we begin I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the lands on which we are gathered here and learning today, the lands of the Whadjuk People of the Nyoongar Nation. May we pay our respects to elders past and present and extend those respects to any First Nations people here with us today.

Thank you for joining us tonight. The evening's first talk is by Professor Tonia Eckfeld. Professor Eckfeld is Exhibition Curator of Terracotta Warriors, Legacy of the First Emperor and is a Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Over the next 30 minutes she is going to tell us about the legacy of the First Emperor. Welcome Tonia. [applause]

Tonia Eckfeld: Welcome. It's good to see a great crowd here ready to hear something about the exhibition and to hear about the inside of the Qin Emperor's immortal paradise. And by inside, I mean what's inside the tomb and what we've got inside the exhibition that comes from the tomb. And also a bit of insider knowledge, a bit of a secret terracotta warriors business, to give the, kind of the real story of the objects. Archeologists have an expression that they like to say, and that is ‘through objects we see people’ and through the terracotta warriors, the legacy of the First Emperor, we have a lot to see.

The Terracotta Warriors were created as protectors of Qin Shi Huang’s soul. They were buried in around 210 BCE to the east of the first emperor, Qin Shi Huang's great tomb. Historically, they capture the First Emperor's supreme political power and military authority. The Terracotta Warriors also have a modern story however, today they're treasured symbols of the Chinese national character, representing strength, unity, discipline, and advanced culture. UNESCO declared them a World Heritage Site in 1987. They captured the imagination of the world.

What is Qin? What was Qin? Qin began as a small state. In 1771 BCE Qin was one of 100 minor states in the Chinese region. For 300 years it gradually expanded through conflict and annexation, starting in the west and moving eastwards. By 475 BCE Qin was one of just seven large kingdoms remaining, so from 100 down to just seven. That was known as the Warring States period, when the Seven Kingdoms competed. In 247 BCE, in the 36th generation of Qin, a 13 year old boy named Ying Zheng became king, and he fought the other Six Kingdoms. Age 38, in 221 BCE, he conquered them all, ending 250 years of conflict and beginning China's unification. With China an empire he declared himself not king but first Qin Emperor Qin Shi Huang.

Qin Shi Huang's tomb pyramid marks the site of his immortal Paradise for his soul to reside. Tombs were built in ancient times as homes for the afterlife and were filled with objects and supplies for the soul to enjoy. Although only a boy when he ascended to the throne, Ying Zheng immediately ordered construction of his tomb. He spent 25 years fighting wars, so although he was a great warrior, he never knew when he might be killed. In 210 BCE, age 49, he died unexpectedly and was buried in his colossal tomb. This colossal tomb complex is more than 56km² in size, with hundreds of relic pits. We'll have a look at some of them tonight. The rammed earth pyramid that you see here is 47m high and 350m wide. That's larger in area than the Great Pyramid of Giza.

What's under the pyramid? Qin Shi Huang is buried under the pyramid. We don't actually know for sure but there is an account from the first century BCE by Sima Qian, a Chinese historian, who recorded what was believed to be inside Qin Shi Huang's underground tomb. That was a bronze outer coffin, fine vessels, precious stones, rare objects and models of palaces, offices and other buildings. On the ceiling there were stars in the shape of constellations, and on the floor were replicas of the empire's rivers, made of mercury flowing into a miniature ocean. Sima Qian wrote that at the entrances to the tomb crossbows were set to shoot potential thieves.

The Qin dynasty was short lived, lasting only 15 years, and after its fall Qin was forgotten except for a few textual records. Hard to imagine now. It was in the 1960s that a few half sized seated figures were found, rather like the groom in the exhibition, the Terracotta Groom. And the mound was identified as a great Qin tomb.

It was in March 1974 that farmers, Yang Zhifa and his brothers, were digging a well and found a lifelike terracotta head. The tomb could then be identified as Qin Shi Huang's, and the glory of the Qin was revealed. Because of that 1974 discovery we feel that the Terracotta Warriors have always been here, but we need to remember that they were hidden for 2200 years. Now we have the feeling that the warriors belong to our lifetime as much as to the Qin.

In 1978 International News announced the Terracotta Warriors to the world. These are two, National Geographic magazine and a little book called New Archeological Finds in China, which were among the first to announce the tomb to an international audience in English. In 1979 the Terracotta Warrior pits were open to view as an archeological site museum for the first time. And importantly, to bring this back home to Perth, the first international exhibition of the Terracotta Warriors anywhere outside of China was to Australia in 1982- 83, including to Perth. Also at the Western Australian Museum in 2002 there was the Two Emperors Exhibition and of course in 2025, The Terracotta Warriors legacy of the first Emperor Exhibition. So the warriors have visited Western Australia for three generations. And that's a very important relationship between, a mark of a very important relationship between, Western Australia and China.

I myself have been working on the Warriors for a long time. This year makes it 51 years. I started when I was not that young, but I was at school, just. In awe of the discovery I followed my interest with field work in China, a PhD and Post Doc, a book on Chinese imperial tombs, research, lecturing, documentary films, and now as curator of the WAM exhibition. I've been very lucky to work under leading experts at the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archeology where I gained first hand access to their knowledge, which they generously shared, and to excavations. And in my approach, and I hope this comes through in the exhibition, I think it does, I combine art history, archeology and materials science. And I think that's a unique thing about the Terracotta Warriors exhibition that we have here, it's very rich and multi-dimensional.

The Qin Empire is similar to China today. Shaanxi Province, you can see marked in red on this map, is the home of the Terracotta Warriors. Qin Shi Huang's tomb is about 30km east of Xi’an, Shaanxi's capital. The Qin capital was also in present day Xi'an, not far from Xi’an. All 228 objects in the exhibition are from Shaanxi Province, because that's Qin, the Qin's homeland, from 18 different museums as well as fresh from archeological sites. About 200 of the objects have never been to Australia before. Almost 100 have never been seen outside China before, never traveled outside China before, and some have never been seen at all before except by the archeologists who excavated them. So this is a very fresh and wonderful exhibition that we've selected and been fortunate in receiving from China for WAM.

So a little bit about Qin Shi Huang's mausoleum complexes. Qin Shi Huang's tomb sits within a walled palace city. You can see the little brown square there, that's the tomb pyramid under which Qin Shi Huang is buried. And then around that there are two city walls, an inner one with a perimeter of 3.8km, an outer one with a perimeter of 6.3km. And a number of pits with treasures in them, and I'll focus mainly on the ones that are in the exhibition. In 1974 pits one, two and three were discovered 1.5km east of the tomb, and those are the pits containing the Terracotta Warriors. In 1980, down here, we've got two bronze chariots with eight horses, and they were discovered inside the inner city wall. In 1998, down here, there were pits, two pits of stone armor. I'll explain a bit more about the stone armor shortly. In 1999, near the, near the stone armor, there was a pit of pottery acrobats. And over on this side, in 2000, 12 officials inside the inner city wall. Up to the north east, there was a pit of bronze birds and pottery musicians. And in more recent times, so from 2012 on, a massive imperial palace, one quarter the size of the city, of the Forbidden City in Beijing, for those of you who've been there, with 18 courtyard houses. So let's have a look at the contents of some of the pits. This is pit one, of the three pits. So altogether about 8000 estimated terracotta warriors, in pit one 6000 soldiers. Pit three has 900, and pit two is a command center with just 68. And these pits contain more than just the soldiers, the warriors. More than 40,000 real weapons have been discovered, about 90 wooden chariots, about 500 terracotta horses for both cavalry and carriages have been excavated so far. The terracotta warriors were mass produced in government and local workshops by skilled artisans. They have clay construction with solid feet on a slab base, hollow legs and arms made like pipes. Bodies made of slabs joined up, you know sort of a giant coil pot method. Heads and hands were made in press molds and were made individual and then pressed on with additional features and inscribed details. Then they were fired to 1000 degrees. Each of the 8000 warriors likely represents a unique individual, and every warrior is unique. They had different ages, ethnicities, and represent a multicultural China. These are all infantry and archers with buns on the top of their heads, usually to the right side, but once in a while, like this one, to the left. All Qin men had mustaches except for child soldiers, and they have all sorts of mustaches, handlebar up, handlebar down, cut square at the edges with sideburns, a goatee, shaven chin, or a full beard. And they all have long hair tied up in elaborate hairstyles, the officers, cavalry, charioteers, and charioteers wore flat buns at the back to allow for their headdresses. There were 20 ranks in the military. Officers could be armored and unarmored, and are distinguished by their flat head wear, flat buns at the back, as I said. With buns on top in the exhibition we have kneeling and standing archers, one armored, who held crossbows. There were infantrymen, there was there's an infantry man, you can see him in the middle with quite plain uniform, who held a spear. The saddled horse and cavalry man, the horse in the exhibition is exceptionally beautiful. The cavalry horses were the best in the Qin Empire, those who were in Qin Shi Huang's immediate army. There are 150 life-size terracotta cavalry horses, and these were buried in pits one, two and three. This one has quite an elaborate saddle with no stirrups, as stirrups had not been invented yet. And it has a long, elaborately braided tail. It would have had, originally, a real bridle. The cavalry man is thin and light for horse riding. You'll notice that when you go through the exhibition and compare him to the other soldiers. He held reins in his right hand and a bow in his left. He wears equestrian clothing that's a tight leather cap with a chin strap, knee leather jacket, knee length jacket, which is pleated below the belt, tight long pants and soft boots. His short armor gave him the freedom to ride. The charioteer next to him, with his arms out, all the charioteers are in that position. In real life they would have taken three years to train and the charioteers were officers. And the general is distinctive, he's absolutely magnificent, and the highlight of the terracotta warriors in the exhibition. He's one of only ten found so far. You'll be impressed with his height. All of the warriors are very tall and that may be because the soldiers who were allowed to be part of Qin Shi Huang's protection forces was selected for height. I don't know that the generals were all really this tall, but the generals that are made of terracotta at least, are 1.95m high. That’s six foot four inches in old money, and they are the tallest figures of all the terracotta warriors. The generals wear pheasant crowns, fine scarves, generals, jackets, full pants and boots. This general’s lightweight armor is no, is not longer at the front, is longer at the front rather than an offices and more lightweight at the back. He has refined features in his face, a full beard, and his cuffs are pushed back. And when you see him in the exhibition, you'll notice... Have a look at his arms, they’re so muscular and they originally, you know, they're in that position in the front, they originally rested on the hilt of a sword.

All the terracotta warriors were brightly painted originally, white, black, blue, purple and red. Tests on the colors have shown that they're made of lacquer with mineral and man made pigments. These fade quickly when exposed to the air, as soon as they’re unearthed the warriors color has been disappearing. And thanks to the wonderful technology, technologies developed by the materials scientists at the Terracotta Warriors Museum, special techniques are now being used to preserve their colour. You can find out more about the colour in the exhibition.

In 1978, as I said, two vehicles were discovered in a pit next to the First Emperor's tomb, in an inner compound on its west side. When excavated in 1990, we’ve got a nice photo from the exhibition, the two bronze vehicles were found to be severely crushed. You can see that here, and especially here. They were broken into more than 1500 pieces. Painstaking reconstruction and restoration work followed. Originally they were made from 5500 separate components cast by the lost wax process, with formed elements and inlay work, then with quite a lot of complicated methods, they were assembled and permanently constructed. The two vehicles on display in the exhibition are completely faithful replicas in scale and detail as the originals are not able to travel. At half size the carriage, closed carriage, and the chariot, the open chariot, cannot be used by the living but retain a truly realistic form and appearance as a mark of respect to the deceased Qin Emperor. The closed carriage was for touring and the open chariot, was for fast travel or his defense detachment. Each has a bronze charioteer and four bronze horses. The carriage was to transport Qin Shi Huang's soul on journeys. Yes, and as I said, the chariot was for his personal protection. Both are half life size and extremely elaborate, made of bronze, silver and gold with painted decoration, they exude luxury and have every, every accurate working detail. And it's so brilliantly done and so beautifully done. Metal was used to faithfully replicate flesh, hair, leather, textiles and wood.

Also in the in the tomb, as I mentioned, there were real weapons, real swords, knives, spears, helmets and other weapons and 40,000 bronze arrows have been found in the tomb. Long swords, and you can see one here and it's very long. We have swords in the exhibition as well. Well one of the secrets that gave the Qin military superiority, the Qin swords were 90cm long and their opponents had short swords of only 30cm long. The swords could be so long and super effective because of the superior metalwork technology that the Qin had. The swords today are still sharp and shiny. In the exhibition there’s one which has a chromate oxide coating, 15 microns of chrome coated in lacquer, and it's still not known how that was done. There were crossbow triggers discovered and one complete crossbow has been discovered. The crossbow for the Chin revolutionised warfare because of its range and because it could be used by effectively, effectively by unskilled fighters. Tests have shown that arrows shot from a Qin crossbow had a range of up to 800m, that's as much as an AK 47.

And one marvelous discovery in 1998, in the inner walled sector next to the pyramid, were the pits of stone armor. These were complex to recover and assemble, and I was very lucky to visit the excavation in progress. And you can see in this slide here there are a lot of little stickers. So all of the sets of armor had been standing up on wooden racks but over time the wooden racks rotted and all of the armor, the suits of armor, collapsed to the floor, collapsed to the ground. And it just was this sea of thousands and thousands of small plates of armor. So the problem is what, to what to do with these, how to reconstruct them. So the archeologists put numbers on the pieces that were lying together, photographed them, and then they were taken out. Then how do you reassemble them, what do you do? Well the secret was in the Terracotta Warriors themselves, the Terracotta Warriors gave the example of how to reconstruct the suits of armor. Of course in real life the suits of armor for real life military were not made of stone, they were made of leather or lacquer, lacquer wear. Altogether there were 80 suits of armor with up to 600 pieces each, and 40 helmets of about 70 pieces each, and even one suit of armor for a horse. So we can guess that that would have been for Qin Shi Huang's horse. The stone armor is made of a very hard type of limestone, and as I've said, of course in reality that couldn't be used. But it was a suitable material for an immortal army, an everlasting army. And the armor offered protection for the shoulders, chest, groin and head.

A very beautiful part of the tomb complex was to the north east of Qin Shi Huang's tomb, and that was a relaxation precinct. A very beautiful place with 46 magnificent life-size and individual bronze birds, 6 cranes, 20 swans and 20 geese. Originally they were colored, black or white, and were placed around an artificial stream. They were accompanied by 15 life-size pottery men who were their keepers, and probably also musicians. They were made with complex lost wax casting and other techniques without precedent up to that point in China.

And to conclude, the ancient philosopher Lao Tzu once said, those who die without being forgotten have longevity. Today, Qin Shi Huang's treasures live in our present with great stories to tell from the past. We still remember the first Emperor, so I like to think that maybe he did achieve immortality. Thank you.

[Recording] Thanks for listening to the talks archive brought to you by the Western Australian Museum Boola Bardip. To listen to other episodes, go to visit.museum.wa.gov.au/episodes/conversation where you can hear a range of talks and conversations. The talks archive is recorded on Whadjuk Nyoongar Boodjar. The Western Australian Museum acknowledges and respects the traditional owners of their ancestral lands, waters and skies.