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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio, Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that uncovers a little bit more about history

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Speaker 1: every day. I'm Gabelusier, and today we're looking at a

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Speaker 1: crucial moment in archaeological history, the time when a group

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Speaker 1: of Chinese farmers stumbled upon the long lost resting place

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Speaker 1: of an ancient emperor. The day was March twenty nine,

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Speaker 1: seventy four. Seven local farmers unearthed a host of ancient

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Speaker 1: artifacts while digging a well near Shan, China. When the

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Speaker 1: whole was about three ft deep, one of the men,

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Speaker 1: a farmer named Yang Jifa, felt his shovel hit a

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Speaker 1: hard piece of red clay. The deeper the farmer's dug,

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Speaker 1: the more shards they uncovered. Before the day was out,

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Speaker 1: they had found dozens of broken pieces of pottery, as

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Speaker 1: well as an assortment of bronze arrowheads, and most shockingly

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Speaker 1: of all, to life size human heads made of terra cotta.

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Speaker 1: At that point, the farmers knew they were onto something big,

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Speaker 1: so they alerted authorities, who then called in Xiao kang Min,

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Speaker 1: an archaeologist who worked at a museum in central China,

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Speaker 1: Xiao came out to the site, assuming the men had

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Speaker 1: found a few household trinkets from ancient China, which was

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Speaker 1: known to happen on occasion. However, the clay heads made

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Speaker 1: him second guess that assumption, especially since they had been

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Speaker 1: found in the general area when Chin cher Huong, the

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Speaker 1: first emperor of China, was believed to be buried. Jao

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Speaker 1: took the heads and pottery shards back to his museum

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Speaker 1: and began trying to piece them together again. When he finished,

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Speaker 1: he had two full sized terra cotta warriors staring back

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Speaker 1: at him. They were the first and what would prove

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Speaker 1: to be an extensive collection of clay figures housed within

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Speaker 1: a vast ancient tomb. The local farmers had been looking

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Speaker 1: for a source of water to help irrigate their farm

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Speaker 1: fields during a drought, but what they stumbled on instead

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Speaker 1: turned out to be one of the most important archaeological

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Speaker 1: discoveries of the twentieth century. Jao and a colleague returned

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Speaker 1: to the dig site and quickly uncovered several more terra

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Speaker 1: cotta warriors. Then they found more, and more and more.

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Speaker 1: After finding about five hundred such statues, Joo assumed they

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Speaker 1: had to be nearing the end, but he was soon

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Speaker 1: proven wrong when the ancient tomb of Chin cher Huong

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Speaker 1: was finally located. Inside the twenty two hundred year old

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Speaker 1: burial site were more than eight thousand clay soldiers, which

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Speaker 1: became collectively known as the ter Racatta Army. The clay soldiers,

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Speaker 1: along with their horses and chariots, were found in three

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Speaker 1: underground trench like pits. The statues are positioned according to rank,

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Speaker 1: and they're placed in battle formation, all facing east. Most

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Speaker 1: of the warriors stand about two meters or six ft tall,

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Speaker 1: and each one can weigh up to two hundred and

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Speaker 1: seventy two ms or around six hundred pounds. The bodies

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Speaker 1: of the figures were created in an assembly line fashion,

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Speaker 1: likely with the use of a shared mold. However, different

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Speaker 1: hand sculpted details and each soldier's facial features, hairstyles, clothing,

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Speaker 1: and arm positions mean that every terra Cotta soldier is unique.

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Speaker 1: Although most of the sculptures have an earthy tan or

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Speaker 1: gray color, today, remnants of paint chips have been found

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Speaker 1: on the figures, suggesting that at one point each soldier

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Speaker 1: had its own brightly colored paint job as well. The

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Speaker 1: life size army of clay had been buried along with

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Speaker 1: the first Emperor of China in the year two hundred

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Speaker 1: and ten BC as a way to protect him in

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Speaker 1: the afterlife. Chin Chohong is remembered as the leader who

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Speaker 1: put an end to a long period of provincial strife

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Speaker 1: by unifying the country's various provinces under one central government.

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Speaker 1: He's also credited with several major advances in Chinese culture,

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Speaker 1: including the introduction of standardized weights and measures, the creation

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Speaker 1: of a uniform system of writing, and the construction of

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Speaker 1: the earliest form of the Great Wall. That said, the

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Speaker 1: first Emperor of China was also renowned for his brutality.

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Speaker 1: For example, he ordered the construction of his own massive

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Speaker 1: tomb and all the statues inside it, but the work

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Speaker 1: itself was done by about seven hundred thousand conscripted laborers.

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Speaker 1: Chin displayed little care for their well being during the

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Speaker 1: nearly three decades they spent bill holding his mausoleum, and

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Speaker 1: once it was finally finished, he reportedly had the surviving

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Speaker 1: workers killed or buried alive within the tomb so that

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Speaker 1: its location and valuable contents would remain a secret. That

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Speaker 1: was a heartless measure, but it did seem to work,

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Speaker 1: as the tomb remained lost to time for more than

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Speaker 1: two thousand years until a group of thirsty farmers picked

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Speaker 1: up the trail by mistake. In the decades since the

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Speaker 1: tomb's discovery, archaeologists have uncovered about six hundred of those

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Speaker 1: underground pits I mentioned earlier. Taken together, they form a

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Speaker 1: vast underground network that stretches across a twenty two square

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Speaker 1: mile area. At first, it was assumed that Chin chu

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Speaker 1: Huang had only seen fit to take an army with

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Speaker 1: him into the afterlife, perhaps a reflection of his militant

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Speaker 1: leadership style. However, in recent years, archaeologists have discovered that

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Speaker 1: the mausoleum isn't just a final resting place for Chin

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Speaker 1: and his arm Instead, it's a kind of recreation of

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Speaker 1: the royal court he enjoyed in life. Scattered through the

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Speaker 1: various pits are terra cotta government officials, terracotta musicians, even

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Speaker 1: troops of terra cotta acrobats. There's also a menagerie of

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Speaker 1: bronze birds and other animals. The emperor wasn't content to

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Speaker 1: just take soldiers with him. He took everything. That's a

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Speaker 1: bit of an exaggeration, but the truth is we still

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Speaker 1: don't know what all is buried within that tomb. All

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Speaker 1: these years later, less than one percent of the burial

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Speaker 1: site has been fully excavated, including the part that contains

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Speaker 1: the remains of the emperor himself. Part of the hesitation

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Speaker 1: is out of respect for such an important figure in

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Speaker 1: Chinese history. Concerns about damaging the artifacts inside have also

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Speaker 1: slowed the process, but another major reason for the hold

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Speaker 1: up involves the potential danger to humans that further excavation

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Speaker 1: might pose. See Chin really did want to replicate his

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Speaker 1: kingdom as closely as possible within his tomb, and to

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Speaker 1: that end, he had workers recreate the yellow and Yanksee

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Speaker 1: rivers by inlaying streams of quicksilver mercury into the floor

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Speaker 1: of his burial chamber. In two thousand five, a team

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Speaker 1: of Chinese archaeologists tested four thousand soil samples from the

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Speaker 1: earthen mound, and sure enough, they all contained a dangerously

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Speaker 1: high level of mercury. In light of that chemical evidence,

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Speaker 1: excavation has slowed over the last couple decades as researchers

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Speaker 1: continue to debate the best methods for protecting both the

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Speaker 1: artifacts and those who wished to study them, As for

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Speaker 1: members of the public who would like to glimpse these

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Speaker 1: man made wonders for themselves. There's a museum of the

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Speaker 1: Terra Cotta Army near the dig site, where tourists can

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Speaker 1: view a collection of artifacts from the tomb, including many

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Speaker 1: of the two thousand or so soldiers who have been

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Speaker 1: disinto heard so far. Several museums outside of China have

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Speaker 1: also hosted exhibitions of a small number of terra Cotta

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Speaker 1: warriors loaned from the Chinese government, but the vast majority

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Speaker 1: of that clay regime are still standing in the burial pits,

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Speaker 1: as they have for more than two thousand years. They're

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Speaker 1: a silent monument to the ingenuity of a nation, to

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Speaker 1: the austerity of a ruler, and to mankind's shared dreams

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Speaker 1: of immortality, however misguided they may be. I'm Gaye Lousier

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Speaker 1: and hopefully you now know a little more about history

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Speaker 1: today than you did yesterday. If you want to keep

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Speaker 1: up with the show, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at t d i HC Show, and if

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Speaker 1: you have any comments or suggestions, you can always send

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Speaker 1: them my way. At this day, at I heart media

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Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks to Chandler May's for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thank you for listening. I'll see you back here

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Speaker 1: again tomorrow for another day in history classm