Terracotta Warriors (Chinese Ed)
Guolong Lai
In 1974, seven peasants digging a well outside the city of Xi’an found a head made of terracotta, low-fired pottery. This chance discovery led to the unearthing of thousands of life-size, startlingly lifelike soldiers and horses – some painted, many damaged. Vast numbers remain buried. Who made this underground army, and for what purpose?
The location of the magnificent figures indicated that they belonged to the tomb complex of the First Emperor, Shi Huangdi (259–210 BCE), the unifier of China. The discovery presented new, direct evidence about a critical historic figure, famed both for his leadership and for his cruelty. Moreover, the terracotta warriors completely changed the idea of early Chinese art. Formerly characterised as abstract and decorative, Chinese culture could now be connected with human images of great realism.
The terracotta army was discovered in the last years of China’s Cultural Revolution and Guolong Lai considers the complex political and scholarly ramifications of the archaeological discovery. Nancy Steinhardt examines Qin and Han tomb architecture as an evocation of the cosmos.
This book sets the terracotta warriors of the First Emperor in a wider context by examining the art of the Qin state in the period that led to the unification of China. Moreover, the legacy of the terracotta army is considered in the smaller but no less interesting pottery figures created for tombs of the early Han dynasty.
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