Mausoleum Terracotta Analysis

The Mausoleum and Terracotta army are one the biggest pieces of Funerary art ever created. Envisioned by Qin Shi Huang to be his final resting place, these structures were designed to follow him into the after life. Qin was born in 260 BC, was given the throne when he was thirteen and took power at the age of forty. “Construction of the tomb began in 246 BC, twenty six years later the construction of the terracotta army began” . The tomb and warriors were finished eleven later, followed the emperor’s death in 210 BC. His innermost circle carried the recently deceased emperor into the tomb, and where they were then sealed off with the emperor and covered with dirt. Almost two Millennia later and the tomb remands closed. Very little is known

Made up of over 8,000 Figures including warriors, generals, and horses, each weighing roughly half a ton. Each warrior was cast into a mold and set out to dry and harden. After the drying was extra clay was used to personalize each figure, resulting in no two figures being the same. The figure was then put into a furnace to harden the figure and be able to support its own weight. The figure was then painted using a type of lacquer that created very vibrant colors, however, after being exposed to air after so many years the paint fades to a dull grey in only minutes. This is what a warrior would look like freshly painted, (Fig.3.) being shown in an art show in the Shaanxi Province . The army is divided between 3 of the 4 pits Found outside the temple by a farmer who was digging a new well for his farm. An excavation project was created concluding that ”Pit one with a length of 210 meters and a width of sixty meters contained just over 7029 troops”Fig.4. . “Pit two had 999 Warriors, including two generals.”Fig.5. “Pit three had 68 troops, including an armored Warrior.”Fig.6. Pit four was the last pit to be excavated but was empty. The layouts of these pits are very deliberate, the figures were set up in order by rank, Beginning with the vanguard, followed by the horse drawn chariots, then by the main battle force equipped with spears and swords, and finally

First a small amount of background on the emperor is needed. Before he was even born there had been “hundreds of years of open warfare between the different feudal lords, referred to as the Warring States period.” His rule was no exception he spent a large portion of his life conquering the 7 kingdoms. By 230 BC, Qin was making the final push to conquer all of the states, and in 221 BC the final state of Qi fell. This was the first time that all of china was unified under one power. He wanted to truly unify all the kingdoms into a true state. He did this by implementing standard measurements, law, language, currency, and even created an interconnected highway system for trade. However the emperor was not universally liked “The First Emperor is by nature obstinate, cruel, and self-willed.” He would regularly put people to death, on one occasion he believed that one of his servants was spreading secrets “Someone among the eunuchs is leaking word of what I say. . . . None would confess to the crime. He then had everyone put to