What do terracotta warriors tell us about life in ancient China?
Fifty years after they were discovered, China’s famous clay figurines are giving up their secrets.
They don’t talk. They can’t move. But the enigmatic terracotta warriors of China are excellent storytellers.
Since they were accidentally discovered 50 years ago by a group of farmers digging a well, these life-size clay figurines have revealed intriguing details about the soldiers of Qin – the feudal state that unified China, for the first time in 221BC under the country’s first emperor Qin Shi Huang.
Shoes may not be the first thing one would notice of these 2,200-year-old sculptures, armed with real weapons and arranged in military formation to guard Qin Shi Huang in his afterlife. But a preliminary analysis of their footwear showed that these humble accessories might have played a “vital role” in the Qin army, and contributed to their ability to achieve victory after victory.
The study compared the reproduced shoes with two pairs of modern “thousand-layer” shoes and found that the replicas were extremely flexible and provided the wearers with “a more comfortable, stable and efficient” walking experience. Their soles also demonstrated better slip resistance in wet conditions.
What surprised Cha most was the shoe sole, known as the “thousand-layer” sole, which comprised several layers of ramie sheets glued, sтιтched and then pounded together.
“When I held the modern replicas of what could have been worn by Qin soldiers more than 2,000 years ago, I was deeply impressed by how exquisite they were,” Cha says. “[I] could clearly see the sтιтches which were pressed through the ‘thousand-layer’ soles and lined up neatly. The soles were extremely soft and comfortable and could be bent very easily.”
The kneeling warrior’s sole was divided into three sections, with each carrying different numbers of sтιтch holes: the forefoot section had the densest patterns, the heel the next and the midfoot the least. This design was also reflected in the researchers’ replicas. They say the detail was based on the needs of the human foot and aimed at providing “optimum comfort, support and durability”.
“Although shoe soles are small, they play a key role in [helping us] understand ancient lifestyles, craftsmanship and cultures,” Cha says.
Equally fascinating are the warriors’ clothes: they were candy-coloured.
When the terracotta warriors were originally created, they were painted a bright array of reds, purples and greens, which are believed to have matched the colours of the clothing worn by the Qin soldiers themselves. In many cases, the paint has not survived the centuries after the warriors had been scorched by fires or soaked in floods, but a few of the warriors have been unearthed with their original colouring still largely intact.
The lacquer used on the fired clay before it was painted – made from a processed tree sap – is highly sensitive to changes in humidity and so dries and flakes off easily, taking the paint with it. But scientists and conservation experts have been developing ways to preserve the polychromatic patterns.
Microscopic and chemical examination of the paint found on other warriors have also provided further insight into what they would have looked like before they were buried.
Reconstructions based on this research seem to suggest the Qin fashion – at least in the army – was to clash colours. All ranks of warriors sported tops and bottoms with eye-popping colour combinations, according to Yuan Zhongyi, one of the first archaeologists sent to the excavation site in 1974.
Another kneeling warrior was unearthed dressed in a long green overcoat with a scarlet collar and scarlet cuffs, blue trousers covered with purple leg protectors, a scarlet headband and brownish-black shoes, according to Yuan.
Yuan cited two letters written by two Qin soldiers, excavated in an ancient tomb in modern-day Hubei province. The two letters, carved on bamboo slips, show the servicemen, who were brothers, asking their family to send them money and clothing.
There are other clues that the 7,000-strong clay army may have been modelled on real people
Among the more than 10 hues archaeologists have found on the relics, the most enigmatic is purple – a complex synthetic dye.
Although there were no historical records of the existence of the terracotta warriors – meaning they stood forgotten in Qin Shi Huangs necropolis for more than two millennia – there are other clues that the 7,000-strong clay army may have been modelled on real people.
One study that examined 30 of the statues’ ears discovered “considerable variation” in the shapes to the extent that “no two ears are strictly the same”.
The Rong fought for Qin to defeat six rival states, says Li. “Therefore, many terracotta warriors had the Rong people’s facial features,” she says.
Such findings reinforce the idea that the vast mausoleum at Xi’ian army was created to replicate the armed forces that served the Qin Emperor during his life so they could protect him in the afterlife. The huge numbers of bronze weapons, including 40,000 arrow heads, were discovered in the pits with the warriors, only serve to support this theory.
But it’s already clear that the skill and workmanship that went into creating them is just as formidable as the military force the unmoving warriors represent.
“Our research demonstrated once more that those who made the terracotta warriors were not just workmen, but artists that created their artworks based on reality,” says Li.
