WEBVTT - Selects: How the Terracotta Army Works 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:05.280 Hi, friends. If this were to be July and you're 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:07.320 Stuff you Should Know listener, you might be queuing up 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:10.600 the following episode, but it's not. It's modern times. But 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:13.160 I enjoyed this one, so it's my select pic. It's 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:15.880 all about the Terracotta Army, and it's called How the 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:25.320 Terracotta Army Works. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:34.280 production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:37.080 I'm Josh Clark with Charles w Chuck Bryant and Jerry. 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:43.920 We're just hanging figure. We pressed record and see what happens. Yeah. Sorry, 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:49.639 Terracotta Army of three not very imposing over Terracotta. Did 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:51.040 you go to the High Museum and see this when 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:53.319 it was around? No? I didn't, you know, Yumi did, 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:55.720 and I wish I would have gone, but I did not. Yeah, 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:58.800 but she was quite blown away. It was awesome and 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:01.600 I didn't even um. I hadn't heard of it until then. 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:03.680 And then when I went and saw it, it was like, 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:06.960 this is pretty amazing, what a great story, And then 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:09.120 I wanted to podcast about it and then just sort 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:11.680 of forgot and now here it is a year later 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:14.920 or however long. Yes, it was a while ago. Yeah, 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:19.760 it was UM but it's still a pretty fascinating story. Yeah, 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:22.880 in that exhibit. If you live UM in on planet Earth, 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:26.440 go to the website and see where it's going to be, 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:29.920 because it travels around there like the Body's exhibit. Yeah, 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:32.520 I mean there's, uh, there's this exhibit and then I 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:37.240 think there's permanent UM exhibits elsewhere. There's a permanent exhibit 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.400 at the site itself, and it's pretty maybe one in London, 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:45.000 I'm not positive. Well, London has everything, but they do, 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:47.800 they do. The only thing they don't have is twelve 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:52.520 ounces of bears. That's yeah, because there's sixteen owns that's right, Yeah, 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:54.920 you don't need it. I took a trip there. I 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:56.480 was like, what's with all these tallboys? And they're like, 0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:00.920 what's that? Oh? I get it now. Yeah. And it's 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:02.920 not like you when you go to the pub, you 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:05.560 don't go in for a twelve ounce or you go 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:08.639 for a point. Yeah, and it's an imperial point, right? 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:12.320 Is that more than sixteen ounces? Is that one point? 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:16.080 Is that sixteen point nine? Is that one point nine ounces? 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:19.280 I'll bet it is. Jerry hold up fingers. Jerry said 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:22.720 twenty ounces is an imperial point, So I was wrong. 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:25.280 Sixteen is a standard point. Are you sure it's not 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.760 twenty five, Jerry. That's called a double doucee. That's called 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:34.760 the core's double doucee. Double deuce is technically why because 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:37.080 the twelve is a single? Right? No, but a double 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:41.000 I thought double juice just meant we're gonna put two 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:45.839 beers into one can. That's the double double beer. What 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:47.639 what are we talking about today? I don't know. I'm 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:50.079 thirsty all of a sudden, though. You want a beer. 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:52.320 It's Friday. I love a beer. Let me just reach 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:57.440 into my bag. Here, you're your cooler bag, carry around 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:00.280 like a purse. I wish man, that'd be fun, cooler 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:02.959 Fannie pack drinking on the job like it's a nineteen 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:08.240 fifties Ye alright, let's get serious, buddy, okay, Chuck. On 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:13.040 the morning of March seven, farmers set out to dig 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:16.720 a well, so begins the article on how Stuff Works 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.320 dot Com. Yes, but it also begins this story A 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:23.400 pretty amazing story. Actually, yeah, it's it's awesome. This was 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:28.960 in the Chinese village of Good Look ug oh, that 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:31.080 was pretty good. That's what I'm gonna say, um, And 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:34.800 they were digging for water and got down about thirteen 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:39.160 feet and hit something hard and dug up a terra 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:44.600 cotta face and head, and we're like, exactly, they're probably 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:48.240 whoa yeah or whatever the Chinese expression for what would 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:52.800 be what was kind of universal? Okay, I'm curious we 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:54.880 do have We found out we're not banned in China, 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:56.840 by the way, Yeah, so hello to all of our 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:59.960 listeners out there in China. Um, and will you let 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.760 us know what woe was in Chinese? Yeah? I think 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:06.640 we should do a show sometime on universal uh sounds Yeah, 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:10.280 like UM have heard different um or read different things 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:14.600 about how people laugh in different countries and people remark 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:19.160 of of of affirmation or decline something like, I think 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:23.320 it'd be really interesting. Yeah. They're called idioms, right, is 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:26.120 that what it is? Like? Here we might go huh, 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:31.159 but somewhere else they might go what else? I don't know. 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:35.839 We got we have focus here, terracotta army. Yes. Um. 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:39.920 So they alerted the government like any good UM citizens should, 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:42.240 and said, hey, I think we have something here you 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:44.719 should come look at. Yeah. Because when they dug down 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:47.760 a little more and they found shards of the same 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:51.400 type of pottery, and a lot of it in kind 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:54.440 of vague human form. And that's when they're like, there's 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:57.400 something weird going on here, So let's contact the authorities. 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:01.960 And the authorities said archaeologists away and sent them out 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:04.760 to the site. Because it was nineteen seventy four, they said, hey, 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:08.719 let's contact the Chinese government right away. That's right. I 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:12.719 don't know if that would happen today. Uh the Chinese people, 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.160 you think, I don't know. It depends on who they are. 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:19.240 I would guess they probably were more likely to in 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.800 seventy four than today. All right, So what they knew 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.720 the the government and experts and archaeologists said, well, hold 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.480 on a minute, you guys are digging near the burial 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:34.960 ground of Chin sure Hondi and Um he was the 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:39.360 first emperor of China and he had a huge mausoleum, 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:41.680 and I bet you anything that's what you guys have found. 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:44.840 And uh, it turns out they were right. The archaeologist 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:50.719 so Um. The legend had it that Um Chin sure Huangdi, 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:56.520 China's first emperor, Um had himself built a pretty awesome mausoleum. 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:58.200 As a matter of fact, you couldn't even call it 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:01.000 a mausoleum. It was called a funerary complex. It was 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:04.400 so massive. But as they started to dig and get 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:06.960 further and further along in this excavation, which they have 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:12.039 still not even and come close to completing, from something, yeah, 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:17.039 it's the size of Manhattan, the size of Manhattan, his 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:21.640 his mausoleum um, they started to realize, like it's even 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.200 bigger than we ever thought. Like it wasn't lost. They 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:27.000 knew that he was buried somewhere around this area. It 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:31.960 was just you don't go digging up emperor's tombs. But 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.720 these these farmers had found something pretty interesting and it 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:38.280 was enough to get the archaeologists over that, and they 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.240 started to dig. And they still have yet to excavate 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:45.520 Cheen's tomb, his actual tomb where he's buried, and we'll 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:48.040 talk about that later. But when they started dig, they 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:50.600 started to reveal like more and more of these terra 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:53.560 cotta figures, and they would stumble upon one room. At 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.839 first they stumbled upon a room and they found chuck, 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:00.880 like six thousand of these things of infantry in all 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:04.440 standing at the ready, all larger than life. They were 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:06.720 about six to six and a half feet tall. That's 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:11.880 including the base. Yeah, all made of terra cotta. Um, crossbows, 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.720 finger on the trigger, um, dudes on horses. Well, those 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:18.160 are in separate rooms. So first room was like six 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:22.040 thousand infant freemen. It was lined up like a information 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:24.680 information would be lined up. Then there was another room 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:29.320 that had like specialists like cavalry, got archers with crossbows, 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:33.320 blow darters yeah. Um. And then there was a third 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:36.320 room that had I think eighties six like commanders. It 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.720 was like the command room. So basically what they revealed 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:45.840 was this terra cotta army information in this guy's grave, yes, 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:49.200 with the idea that, um, he wanted protection in the 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:54.280 afterlife because he was one of the great jerks of 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:58.360 world history. He really Yeah, he was terrible. He was 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:01.640 a tyrant, for sure. He was a He perhaps was 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:04.160 responsible for the deaths of more than one million of 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:11.040 his citizens. He also, though, got things done. Yeah, let's 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:14.480 talk about the guy. Okay. So he was the first emperor. 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:19.400 Before him, China had seven kingdoms, and um in four 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.400 eighty one, all these kingdoms said, you know what, I 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:24.520 want to be the main kingdom. So it started what 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.920 was called the Warring States, the era of battling for 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:31.800 land and superiority. And I saw this really neat documentary 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:38.640 on that geo I think called China's Ghost Army. I 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:40.720 think it's what's called. I posted a link on our 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:44.000 on our podcast page for this episode. Totally worth watching. 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.520 It's like an hour. But they say that UM before this, 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:52.120 prior to this Warring States era, when an emperor died 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:58.480 in chen the chen Um Kingdom, Uh, they would kill 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:02.920 the whole court, hundreds of people would be buried alive 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:07.480 with the emperor. And then this Warring States, these battles 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:11.839 and wars were so significant as far as casualties went. 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:14.839 There like, we can't do that anymore, we need them 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:17.920 to go fight in the wars. So they stopped that tradition. 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:20.840 But it was because of this Um the Warring States 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:25.280 era interesting and that can you imagine like two people 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:28.840 just being mass buried alive together because the emperor died, 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:33.000 I can't imagine. So let's get back to this jerk 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:40.280 cheen He Uh He overtook and basically was the first emperor. 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:44.840 Uh forced people to be in the army, built up 0:09:44.880 --> 0:09:48.880 a huge army UM. He relocated in his first year 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:51.800 about a hundred and twenty thousand families. And that's like 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:55.000 Stalin did that same thing. It's like, you can't have 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:58.800 ethnic unity and then that kind of collective thought and 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:02.400 then potentially an upper rising if you break up that 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.600 kind of ethnic bonds by basically bussing people in and 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:07.720 out of different areas. Yeah, it makes sense, but this 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:11.040 guy was doing it like um, a couple like about 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:14.960 two thousand years before stalling crazy. He burned all the books, 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:18.319 he burned all the writings. Uh. Scholars that didn't jibe 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:22.640 with his line of thought were buried alive or beheaded. Yeah. 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:26.600 He was a piece of garbage and he was terrible. Um. 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:30.840 He assembled a workforce of a million men to build 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:35.080 about five thousand miles of roads, um. And the Great 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:37.520 Wall of China. Yeah, the first Great Wall of China. 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:39.920 So while he said he was a jerk, he made 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:42.000 a point. He got things done. I mean he he 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:48.120 got a monetary system that was unified. Yeah. He also 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:54.400 unified weights and measurements. Um. He unified China from seven 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.600 kingdoms into one country. And it's still that way today 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.760 two thousand years later. And if you've noticed the similarity 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.040 between Chin and China, that's because the country is named 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:07.360 after him, so he got things done. Vital figure in 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:12.480 China's history, but he did a brutal, brutal, controlling, murderous dictator. Right. 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:16.040 He wasn't asking, And he also had a really conflated 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:20.520 view of his the empire that he'd put together. And 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:23.199 you can see this apparently in the money that he minted. 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:27.000 Like he there were different regions that he conquered had 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:29.200 different kinds of money, so he did create like a 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:32.800 single monetary system. I think you said, um, and that 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:36.640 that money was square shaped with a hole in the center, 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:38.760 so kind of like a square donut. The band Liang 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:43.319 coin and that coin at the time in ancient China, 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:47.800 um the square represented the earth and the circle represented 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:51.120 the sky or the heavens. And so what he was 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:54.400 saying is that this earth, my empire, is even greater 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:58.160 than the heavens that surround the earth. That's how how 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:01.040 good I'm feeling about my off right now? He felt 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:04.199 pretty good, but he was parah annoyed, and I think 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:06.800 that usually comes when you're on top and you get 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:10.200 there by any means necessary, you're gonna be watching your 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:13.720 back your whole life. Um. Specifically, he came from the 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:17.800 west and conquered eastward. So when he was buried, he 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:21.800 had the terra Cotta army facing east to protect him 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:24.200 because of all the badness he had done. And this 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:28.400 is after he had killed hundreds of scientists that he 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:31.560 commissioned to try and prolong his life. Yeah, so we 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:34.800 talked about him actually in the Bizarre Medical Treatments episode. 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:39.240 I think without realizing it, that um, he at the 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:42.480 back in the day at the time they believe mercury 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:48.920 had some sort of like life enhancing or immortality bestowing properties, 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:52.280 and he would take mercury pill. I think that that's 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:57.840 ironically what killed him. Um. But he in addition to mercury, 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:00.480 he sent out people to like find Fountain of Youth 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:04.720 or whatever was the Chinese legend version of that. Um. 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:09.840 He was obsessed with remaining alive and simultaneously, like you said, 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.800 totally paranoid with dying. So he must have been a 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:18.440 very tormented person. Yeah, he killed. Hum. Doctors and scientists 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.439 were killed who could not come up with a way 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:26.520 to make him immortal and again buried alive or beheaded. O. Great. 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:30.559 Not a good guy. UM, all right, you want to 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:34.360 take a break here and talk more about the terracotta army. Yes, sorry, 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:59.520 so chuck, Um, when we uh, we were talking about 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:01.360 this guy, think you're paying it a pretty good picture 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:04.760 of him. I guess he comes to either he comes 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:06.720 to grip with the idea that he's going to die, 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.480 because at the time, like he's trying to chase immortality, 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:15.520 he's concocting um like a huge burial massoleum for himself. 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:18.480 I guess, hedging his bets in case he does die. 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:21.960 But by this time, like Confucius and other scholars in 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:26.520 China had basically like philosophically debunked the idea of life 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:31.040 after death. So this man was utterly crazy by his 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:36.160 contemporary standards. Um, And that kind of shows if you 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:39.320 step back and really think about the attitude and the 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.840 mentality behind what he was doing. But he at some 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:45.080 point either came to grips with the factors he was 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:47.160 gonna die, or he was just hedging his bets and 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:49.480 thought he was going to remain immortal. But just in case, 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:54.080 let me have this incredible grand funerary complex created, and 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:57.000 let's build a terra Cotta army to protect me in 0:14:57.040 --> 0:14:59.760 the afterlife. Yeah, it's really neat to look at the 0:14:59.840 --> 0:15:03.600 terr Kotta army. Now is art, but it's eight thousand soldiers. 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:08.200 Like this guy was clearly cuckoo. He was off his rocker. Yeah, 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:11.240 he was a bad man. He was a bad man. Alright. 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.440 So shall we start with the army. Yes, let's because 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:16.880 it's not all that was that he had commission. But 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:20.440 the armies are very it's pretty significant. It is significant. Um, 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:22.920 Like you said, they are in formation. So the front 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:27.600 dudes are Um, they're kneeling down their bowmen and they 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:30.040 were famous the armies they had then, and this is 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:32.200 one of the reasons he took over. They figured out 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:34.120 the crossbow, and they figured out how to shoot while 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:37.520 riding a horse, and that was basically all she wrote. Yeah, 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:41.440 everybody else is like your mother. Yeah, like down here 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:43.840 with a sword on the ground and you're shooting at 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:46.680 me from twenty ft away with some weird metallic bolt. 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:52.080 I guess not metallic, but wouldn't. Yeah, they weren't forging 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:56.040 steel back then. I wonder when they did start. I 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:58.760 don't know. It sounds like a podcast it does how 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:01.440 steel works. Yeah, it would be a good one. I 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:04.680 could see that. Um. So you have these bowmen, they 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:07.960 have on their armor. Um, their fingers on the trigger 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:13.120 there incredibly detailed down to the soles of their feet. Yeah, 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:15.520 they have their shoes they're wearing have like tread marks 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.680 on the bottom. So they took great pride, these artists, 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:21.680 clearly because they probably didn't want to get killed, because 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:24.320 each of them had to sign in case there was 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:26.000 a flaw, it could be traced back to who built 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:28.880 this one. Yeah, that they were killed if they didn't 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:31.480 like it. They most decidedly were. There were eighty three. 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:35.400 They found the stamps, which were ultimately the signatures of 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:39.440 eighty three different foreman, and each foreman had a team 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.160 of apprentices working under him, and the reason that they 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:44.000 did assign those stamps was so that he could have 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:47.520 them killed if he didn't like how slow work was progressing, 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:51.720 if he didn't like what it looked like. Um. And 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:54.440 at first, chuck, they were like, well, this is clearly 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:57.040 they just set up an assembly line. Molds were known 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:00.720 to the Chinese back then, and um, that's the only 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:04.800 way you could possibly create seven thousand figures from a 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:07.840 terra cotta army. And they found that yes, actually the 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:12.040 heads were um created through molds. I think that arms 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:14.120 were and stuff like that, but the bulk of them 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:18.760 were created by this thing called coiling. Okay, so what 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:22.000 is that like three D printing? Very much so. Actually 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:26.040 they take clay and hammer until it's soft impliable, and 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:28.960 then you wrap it in like a rope around it, 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:33.160 and then you mold it. And the thing it really 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:36.280 took these there's people who are recreating it to try 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:39.240 to figure out how they did it, and they've examined 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:41.439 like broken pieces so they can see the inside and 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:44.879 they can see the coiling evidence very clearly, and they're like, 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:49.640 it doesn't make any sense, Like you can't quickly make 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:53.960 um all these figures in an efficient way by coiling? 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:57.199 Why would they not just use molds? And finally somebody realized, 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:00.840 like this emperor was a bloodthirsty tie right, he didn't 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:06.240 care about efficiency. He cared about differences distinctions. So while 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:08.879 so while the heads, just the actual shape of the 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:13.720 heads were made in molds, the bodies were made by hand, 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:17.280 each one through this coiling method. So where you could 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:19.960 make like a molded body and maybe a week, it 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:24.560 would take a month to do one body by coiling. 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:27.439 And that's what they were doing because he wanted them different. 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:30.480 That's crazy. Yeah, he just didn't want to carbon carbon 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:34.639 copies soldiers exactly. So each one of these the body 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:38.560 was made by hand through this incredibly intensive coiling method. 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:41.000 So they're starting from the ground up obviously with the 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:44.240 base and then coiling their way up. The legs then 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:48.080 were molded and affixed, uh, as well as the arms 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:50.840 and torsos. No, not the torsos, not the torso No, 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:55.280 that's not right. Um okay, gotcha. But then the heads, 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:58.199 they said they found eight different head molds. Yes, and 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:01.360 that's just the big mold, not the right. The faces 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:06.640 were done by hand individually as well, right, each face. Yeah. 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:09.760 The hair and expressions, yeah yeah, and the hair uh. 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:12.400 You know, warriors who had had the most kills had 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:17.680 longer hair and a bigger up right bigger bee high 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:20.600 and um, so they would you know, they took great 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:24.359 care into making you know, the the most revered soldiers 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:27.920 have their hair matched as it should, basically as realistic 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:31.280 as they could. Yeah. Like around, if you're just an infantryman, 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:33.480 you'd be wearing like one of one of those beanies, 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:37.480 a beanie hat probably, um, with maybe like your bund 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:40.359 just kind of sticking up off to the side. Underneath, 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:42.800 if you're a general, you might be wearing a huge 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:46.240 hat with a pheasant feather and a bow tying the 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:50.040 whole thing underneath you. Pretty fancy, Yeah, very fancy. So 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:54.080 these things were incredibly detailed. They weren't like a knockoff 0:19:54.720 --> 0:20:00.280 Star Wars figure that you would find in bulk Area 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:03.960 or something like that, you know, or China. Yeah, sure, 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:06.840 that was way more appropriate than Bulgaria. They probably make 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:11.280 the real thing too. Um. Yeah, these were very detailed. 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:14.480 Not you know, you wouldn't want to say lifelike. They're 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:19.240 still artistic slightly, but they were pretty detailed still. Yeah, 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:21.960 and they the ones you see now when they see 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:24.160 him in the museum or you look it up on Google. Um, 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:27.080 they are not colored, but that is because of humidity 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:29.960 and time. But um, originally they fired him in the 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:32.520 killing and they painted and lacquered them as well. That's right. 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:35.359 I'd love to see those. Look at watch that National 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:39.040 Geographic thing. They've redone one in the original colors that 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:43.080 they think, and they're almost garish. They're so different like 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:50.240 colorful wise and um, lots of surprising lavenders and blues 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:54.480 and purples and things, reds, colors used to be way 0:20:54.480 --> 0:21:00.560 more garish. Um, but so okay. They were doing some 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:04.440 assembly line stuff. Most of the bulk of it, though, 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:08.960 was coiled by hand. The faces, the hair all done 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:13.000 by hand, and then each one was painted by hand 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:19.640 and then given a coat of lacquer. That's insane. It's 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:22.360 insane that the Sky would have had an assembly line 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:26.199 of seven thousand of these things built and unpainted. But 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:29.639 he didn't. He went even more detailed. And apparently also 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:32.560 I learned from that documentary at the time lacquer was 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:37.800 an extremely expensive um product and he was using it 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:41.480 on his terra cottas soldiers. It still ain't cheap, uh, 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:43.959 And that they there wasn't just the soldiers, there were 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:48.359 also um some Uh. There was a strong man in 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:51.320 another room and some what do you call him that 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:54.840 circus performers, Yeah, acrobats. And I looked up the strong 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:56.639 man and he was noted for the detail of his 0:21:56.720 --> 0:21:59.280 biceps and he had a gut, he did, he had 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:02.200 a gut and some my guns, yeah, cutting guns. He's 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:05.800 missing his head right, Yeah, I didn't see a head. Yeah, 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:09.119 but yeah, he's got he's a big boy. He's like um, 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:11.800 he was built like Andre the Giant, Yeah kind of 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:14.440 all right, you want to take another little rest here, 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:18.439 We'll take a quick napa and then I'll let you 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:47.320 awake very gently. All right, We'll we'll finish up. What up, buddy, huh, 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:51.560 it's time to finish the terracott army. Oh man, oh, 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:55.040 I got like crusted in my eyes. Look at you. Okay, 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:59.000 I'm back, Chuck, Okay. So Geen wasn't the only ruler 0:22:59.080 --> 0:23:04.440 to do this, right, No, he wasn't. Who else did it? Well? 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:07.760 Do you remember in our Pyramids episode, although it hasn't 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:10.080 come out yet, no one will know what I'm talking about, 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:14.480 but you will eventually. Um, we talked about how the 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:18.040 the Pyramid of Cufu was the pinnacle of pyramid building 0:23:18.040 --> 0:23:22.200 in dynastic Egypt, and then the pyramids got smaller because 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:26.200 the rulers um cred I guess went down as people 0:23:26.200 --> 0:23:28.720 started to worship the Sun instead. Great point that I 0:23:28.720 --> 0:23:32.200 had never considered. Very similar thing happened in China as 0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:36.440 people as the well. The Ching dynasty only lasted for 0:23:36.480 --> 0:23:40.919 another four years after Cheen sure huangdi um died, and 0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:44.440 then the Han dynasty started, and the Hans apparently had 0:23:45.320 --> 0:23:49.879 much um easier hand with their subjects, and so as 0:23:49.880 --> 0:23:53.080 a result, even though they had terracotta armies buried with them, 0:23:53.320 --> 0:23:55.639 they were like a third to a sixth of the 0:23:55.760 --> 0:23:59.560 size of Cheen's terracotta army. And they take that as 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:04.040 a sign and that this um might empower over people. 0:24:04.720 --> 0:24:09.639 Um had diminished tremendously. Yeah, I think it was symbolic 0:24:09.720 --> 0:24:14.239 of a kinder Um regime UM and one that was 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:18.800 not also booby trapped with like very much like Raiders 0:24:18.800 --> 0:24:22.679 of the Lost Arc. Apparently Cheens to him or the 0:24:22.680 --> 0:24:25.919 whole complex was booby trapped with like blow darts and 0:24:25.960 --> 0:24:31.120 stuff ready to go ye, and also we did we um. 0:24:31.200 --> 0:24:33.439 One of the reasons why this thing was booby trapped 0:24:33.440 --> 0:24:37.159 was to prevent looters. Because remember there's a historian that 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:39.280 was that came along not too long after. He's a 0:24:39.480 --> 0:24:42.000 part of the early Han dynasty. From what I understand, 0:24:42.119 --> 0:24:47.919 his name is Sema kion Um, and Seema Kian is 0:24:47.960 --> 0:24:51.600 the one who first described cheens mausoleum. And one of 0:24:51.640 --> 0:24:54.520 the things he described is that Um on the ceiling 0:24:54.640 --> 0:24:58.439 was a constellation made of pearls and gems. Mountains had 0:24:58.480 --> 0:25:02.880