The Terra Cotta Army: China's First Emperor and the Birth of a Nation

305 Pages·2009·2.6 MB·English

by  John Man

CHAPTER
THE TERRA COTTA ARMY
i
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THE TERRA COTTA
ARMY
China’s First Emperor and the
Birth of a Nation
JOHN MAN
DA CAPO PRESS
A MEMBER OF THE PERSEUS BOOKS GROUP
Copyright © 2008 by John Man
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the
prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United
States of America. For information, address Da Capo Press,
11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142.
Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book
is available from the Library of Congress.
First edition published in Great Britain in 2007 by
Bantam Press, an imprint of Transworld Publishers
HC: ISBN 978-0-306-81840-0
PB: ISBN 978-0-306-81744-1
First Da Capo Press edition 2008
First Da Capo Press paperback edition 2009
Published by Da Capo Press
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
www.dacapopress.com
Da Capo Press books are available at special
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please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus
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CONTENTS
List of Maps vii
A Note on Spelling ix
Acknowledgements xi
Picture Acknowledgements xiii
Preface: An Army of the Past and Present xv
PART I: ORIGINS
1 Discovery 3
2 The Grand Historian’s Hidden Agenda 16
3 Warring States, Conflicting Ideas 27
4 From Prince to King 42
5 The Making of China 61
6 A Ruthless Frenzy 72
PART II: BEYOND THE GRAVE
7 The World to Come 97
8 Digging the Tomb 115
9 Making the Eternal Army 127
10 Sudden Death 157
11 Consumed by Fire 179
PART III: THE EIGHTH WONDER
12 Six Thousand Characters in Search of a Role 205
13 New Marvels in Bronze and Stone 230
14 On Handling Treasures 247
15 To Be Revealed 257
Appendix 1: Dates and Dynasties 269
Appendix 2: Qin and the Terra Cotta Army in Context 271
Bibliography 275
Index 281
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CHAPTER
MAPS
The Qin Empire and the Wei Valley 30
The Tomb and its Surroundings 173
The Museum and the Army 202
vii
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CHAPTER
A NOTE ON SPELLING
Most Chinese words in this book are names, and all except
for the occasional very well-established one are trans-
literated using the modern system, pinyin (as opposed to the
old one, known as Wade–Giles). In pinyin, most letters and
diphthongs are roughly as in English, but some have their
own pronunciation. These are the main ones:
Consonants:
c as in rats
q as in church
x is between s and sh
z as in suds
zh as in fudge
Vowels:
e as in the US pronunciation of nurse
ie as in yeah
ue as in a contracted form of ‘you were’ – y’were
eng as in sung
ei as in gay
Commonly, pinyin omits the tones, which helps define the
Chinese character. In Mandarin, there are four tones,
indicated with accents on the vowel (the first, in diph-
thongs):
First (high, level) tone: a¯ e¯ ¯ı o¯ u¯
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