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  21. 		<TITLE>Making the Terracotta Warriors 秦始皇兵马俑 - 秦俑</TITLE>
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  73. 			<h1><font size="-1" color="white" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Terracotta Warriors<br>
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  74. 				</font><font size="+1" color="white" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">兵马俑<br>
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  75. 				</font><font size="-1" color="white" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">How many men did it take to create the terracotta warriors and horses?</font></h1>
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  81. 							<td><font size="-1" color="white" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">How many men did it take to create the terracotta warriors and horses?  The most often cited estimate is that of Sima Qian, who said that 700,000 men worked on the project.  Sima Qian wrote at least a hundred years after the fact and was referring to the entire mausoleum  project.  He did not mention the soldiers and horses in his description.  This number has been questioned by a number of modern authors including John Man.  John Man estimated that 16,000 men could have completed the foundations in two years, and that would include the mausoleum.  Even all three projects; the mausoleum, the Efang Palace, and the surrounding installations could not absorb the labor of 700,000 men.  </font>
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  82. 								<p><font size="-1" color="white" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Jack Dull (1983) described passages from the Second Qin Emperor's Annals in which the emperor was considering moving men from the labor of replacing the earth on the mausoleum to work on the Efang Palace which had been left abandoned. The laborers were all convicts. Later, one of the emperor's advisors suggested pardoning the convicts who were still working on the mausoleum and arming them to put down the rebels who were approaching the capital. This was done and the battle was won. No number was given for the number of convicts, but there weren't enough of them to work on both moving dirt and on finishing the palace. As Dull pointed out, many of the numbers were based on stories told by people attempting to explain why the Qin had been overthrown. </font></p>
    83. 

  83. 								<p><font size="-1" color="white" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">If I were going to organize the project,  I would have a team of 20 to 30 craftsmen in a central location making the molds.  These would be the designers who could plan the variations of the soldiers and make sure that the parts of the molds fit together well.  There would be duplicate molds of the major parts, both for efficiency and to guard against breakage.  The various molds could be distributed to potters all over the area.  The pollen data shows that the soldiers were made and fired in areas outside of Xi'an and the horses were made by potters within Xi'an.  The soldiers came in relatively small sections and could be transported easily, so could their molds.  The molds would be distributed to different potters based on the size of their kilns.  It has been noted that the legs and arms of the warriors used the same techniques as were used for making clay water pipes.  It's logical that the legs and arms would be distributed to those potters who specialized in making clay pipes.  The torsos, being the largest of the pieces, would be sent to potters who specialized in making larger urns and bottles and would have the largest kilns.</font></p>
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  84. 								<p><font size="-1" color="white" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">If I were a potter in those days, once I heard about this large order, I would step up production of my usual wares to have enough on hand to meet usual demand. It is unlikely that the potters did not get advance notice of such a huge project. Master craftsman would have traveled to check on the facilities available to determine the proper distribution of orders. Potters probably vied for the opportunity to fill at least part of the order. There had to be an abundance of potters available to choose from, as many of the building materials of this and succeeding dynasties were products of the potter's kiln. Roof tiles, floor tiles, clay pipes, and miscellaneous funerary objects were all products produced regularly by the potters. When you consider the number of roof tiles that had to be produced in any given year, making 7,000 or 8,000 warriors doesn't seem to be a big deal.</font></p>
    85. 

  85. 								<p><font size="-1" color="white" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">After making the molds for the bodies, the second challenge that required expertise would be fashioning the individual features of the warriors. Again, I would establish a workshop of 20 to 30 artisans and position them near a military encampment. If they were near troops, it would be easy for a lieutenant to order a group to go pose for an hour and then another group and another group and another group. Once the artisans got the hang of it, the work would go quickly. Have you ever watched a sketch artist in the park doing quick portraits on the fly? It doesn't take much to create a quick likeness.</font></p>
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  86. 								<p><font size="-1" color="white" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The pits are another matter.  They are in fact just holes, big holes, but holes just the same.  Digging a hole in the loose friable loess plain is not like blasting granite, it takes time, but it's not that hard. The pounded earth bulwarks that separate the columns of soldiers are the most difficult part of the pits.  However, the technique was widely used and had been widely used for several thousand years.  By the time of the Qin dynasty, they should have gotten good at it. Teams of workers would walk back and forth pounding with platens attached to poles.  Basically a platinum is a piece of board mounted perpendicular to the end of a pole so that it can flatten the earth when pounded repeatedly.  Ranks of workers in 4 to 6 lines with 15 to 20 people would walk back and forth, adding layer after layer of dirt to the mound.  If I were planning this.  I would use wooden forms to shape the bulwarks adding additional forms as the height increase.  The wood from the forms could then be used as part of the roof.  An alternative method would be to create the bulwarks wider than necessary, and then carve them to the desired width.  And archaeologists could easily answer the question, but I haven't read any papers describing what technique was used.</font></p>
    87. 

  87. 								<p><font size="-1" color="white" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">A third challenge for the project was assembling and painting the sculptures.  I would set up a workshop near the pits for the work. Different huts would specialize in different ranks so that the arms, legs, and torsos could be combined with the proper heads.  Once assembled, the soldiers would move to the next hut, where they would be painted in the appropriate colors.  The painting would not require great talent.  The challenge with common in making enough pigment of the proper colors to cover the expanse of the army.  It's likely that individual colors were put on, allowed to dry, and then additional colors added one at a time over a few days.  I picture groups of workers moving through the ranks of soldiers painting yellow sashes and moving on to the next rank.  They could even be followed by another group of workers painting a different color as long as it wasn't contiguous to the yellow.  This would be seasonal work, because it would be most efficient to allow the paint to bake in the sun.</font></p>
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  88. 								<p><font size="-1" color="white" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The horses pose a fourth major challenge.  The pollen data showed that the horses were made within the precincts of Xi'an.  Their bodies required much larger kilns, and they legs were much more fragile.  Transporting them would have been difficult, to say the least.  So far, 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses have been found in the pits.  If the work were divided among two or three large kilns, it shouldn't have taken too long to produce a horses.</font></p>
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  89. 								<p><font size="-1" color="white" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">When you look at it one it seems like an enormous undertaking.  But if you imagine the 700,000 workers, were working on the mausoleum itself, there just isn't enough room for that many people.  They would've gotten in each other's way and slow the work down to a crawl.  Even adding in the lumberman who brought in the logs and wood would not bring up the total workers necessary for such a project to 700,000.</font></p>
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  90. 								<p><font size="-1" color="white" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The project was big and expensive, but not exorbitant.  They could have dressed pottery figures in real uniforms and armor  Most bronze items were the weapons carried by the warriors.  Those would have been commissioned from the usual military suppliers.  Apart from the two bronze carriages found in the command post, the chariots were wooden facsimiles.  They used known techniques and local materials; they just used a lot of them.  I don't mean to diminish the work: it took a lot of imagination and planning to create the impressive display.  When the mausoleum is opened, it might be another story.  The description given by Sima Qian of the mausoleum as an entire world, including starry skies studded with pearls, rivers flowing with mercury, and the features of the landscape all re-created for the First Emperor's pleasure, suggests a work of both artistic and scientific importance.</font></p>
    91. 

  91. 								<p><font size="-1" color="white" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">It was standard practice to bury what we consider enormously valuable items in tombs.  Just consider the tomb of a minor ruler of the State of Zeng, a small kingdom on the Yangtze River in what is now Hubei Province.  The tomb belonged to Marquis Yi of Zeng who died in 433 BC.  More than 150,000 pieces of material have been excavated from the site, including ritual vessels made of bronze, complete sets of musical bells, chariots, gold statues, wooden drums, thousands of pieces of lacquer ware, and huge painted caskets to contain the treasures  The Marquis traveled well.</font></p>
    92. 

  92. 								<p><font size="-1" color="white" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Within the context of the times the warriors and horses,  while monumental, fit the perception of the emperor's place.  If the Marquis is buried with 150,000 objects, an emperor, by the standards of the times, would have to go well beyond that.  It is fascinating that there is no mention of the warriors and horses in ancient writings or historical record.  This could mean that they were lost in memory or that they were considered an unimportant part of a much larger installation.  Sima Qian described the mausoleum, but failed to mention any outlying features.  The recent discovery of another site suggests that there are more surprises to come.</font></p>
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  93. 								<p><font size="-1" color="white" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">  <br>
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  94. 										Dull, Jack L.  &quot;Anti-Qin Rebels: No Peasant Leaders Here.&quot;  <em>Modern China</em>, Vol. 9, No. 3. (July, 1983), pp. 285-318.</font></p>
    95. 

  95. 								<p><font size="-1" color="white" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Man, John. <em>The Terra-cotta Army: China’s first emperor and the birth of a nation</em>. London: Bantam Press, 2007. </font></p>
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