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EVERYONE HAS HEARD AND SEEN PICTURES OF CHINA'S INCREDIBLE TERRA COTTA WARRIORS.
In fact, I have 10 of them, all reproductions from life-sized to 1 ft high! But like the real ones, mine are a dull, metallic grey.
Like 99% of humanity, I assumed this was their original colour since statues don't really need to be painted in bright, vibrant colours if they were meant to be buried with Emperor Shih Huang Ti, China's first emperor who unified China some 230 years before the birth of Jesus Christ.
So I was suitably stunned and impressed to read in National Geographic (my favourite non-lifestyle magazine) that these terra cotta warriors were originally GLOWING in bright, happy and cheery hues when they were first made!
It must have been a startlingly stunning sight when the terra cotta warriors were finished and placed into its military position. Almost all formations faced East, the direction where China's old enemies like the barbaric Mongols and Huns launched the attacks.
Buy your issue of National Geographic to read this and other stories that inspire your soul and uplift your mind.
Terra-Cotta
Warriors in Color
It
was a dazzling spectacle: a life-size army of painted clay soldiers buried to
guard an emperor's tomb. Now archaeologists and artists, armed with the
latest tools and techniques, are bringing that ancient vision back to life.
 An Infantryman's Faded Arm Traces of paint offer a hint of the bold hues that decorated the army at the moment of burial more than 2,200 years ago. This fragment replicates typical armor of the era: pieces of leather covered with lacquer that were fastened together with red cords. The hand was formed to hold a weapon. 
Birth
by Mass Production
A face took shape in one of several dozen molds. The sculptor then added details, choosing from an array of basic hairdos, ears, eyebrows, mustaches, and beards. The body was created separately and displayed a similar combination of standard elements. All together, the completed figures gave an impression of infinite variety, as in a real army. 
Digging
Into New Discoveries
Crouching by a jumble of fresh finds, Yang Jingyi brushes away the last of the mud before restoration begins. As their excavations move closer to the central burial mound, archaeologists hope to reveal many more unusual twists to the story of the terra-cotta army. 
In
real life an ordinary soldier's garment would likely have been made of hemp,
whereas an officer would wear silk. The army had no uniforms—warriors
provided their own clothing.
Skin
was usually painted buff, as here, or a shade of pink, though one face
displays a puzzling green tint.
As
depicted on this terra-cotta fragment, real armor would have curved like a
roof tile over the top of the arm. Underneath, most men wore a long-sleeve,
knee-length coat belted at the waist.
The
whites of the eyes and other details offer hints of the personality that
paint once brought to this face.
Chinese Afterlife
Restless Spirits
In China, ancient human sacrifice has given
way to modern tomb-tending ceremonies, but the dead still make demands.
By
Peter Hessler
Photograph by Ira Block
In the
village of Spring Valley, people rarely spoke of the dead, and they didn't
like to reminisce. "This place was always so poor," villagers said
if I asked about the old days, and then they fell silent. They had few old
photographs and only a handful of written records. The Great Wall stood
nearby, but even those impressive ruins didn't inspire much interest. In
2001, I began renting a home in the village, partly because I was curious
about the region's history, but soon I realized that glimpses of the past
were fleeting. Like most Chinese of the current generation, the villagers
focused on today's opportunities: the rising prices for local crops, the
construction boom that was bringing new jobs to Beijing, less than two hours
away.Treasures of Ancient China Rising to Life: Treasures of Ancient China
By Peter Hessler
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.) |
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