way to eastern Europe. By sometimes brutal methods, the First
Emperor consolidated rule through a centralized bureaucracy and
adopted standardized written language, weights and measures, and
coinage. He also repressed schools of thought other than Legalism,
which espoused absolute obedience to the state’s authority and ad-
vocated strict laws and punishments. Chinese historians long have
condemned the First Emperor, but the bureaucratic system he put
in place had a long-lasting impact. Its success was due in large
part to Shi Huangdi’s decision to replace the feudal lords with
talented salaried administrators and to reward merit rather than
favor high birth.
TERRACOTTA ARMY, LINTONGIn 1974 excavations
started at the site of the immense burial mound of the First Emperor
of Qin at Lintong. For its construction, the ruler conscripted more
than 700,000 laborers and had the tomb filled with treasure. The
project continued after his death. The mound itself remains unexca-
vated except for some test trenches, but researchers believe it con-
tains a vast underground funerary palace designed to match the
fabulous palace the emperor occupied in life. The historian Sima
Qian (136–85 BCE) described both palaces, but scholars did not take
his account seriously until the discovery of pits around the tomb
filled with more than 6,000 life-size painted terracotta figures (FIG.
7-6) of soldiers and horses, as well as bronze horses and chariots.
The terracotta army served as the First Emperor’s bodyguard de-
ployed in perpetuity outside his tomb.
The Lintong army, composed of cavalry, chariots, archers,
lancers, and hand-to-hand fighters, was one of the 20th century’s
greatest archaeological discoveries. Lesser versions of Shi Huangdi’s
army have since been uncovered at other Chinese sites, suggesting
that the First Emperor’s tomb became the model for many others.
The huge assemblage at Lintong testifies to a very high degree of or-
ganization in the Qin imperial workshop. Manufacturing this army
of statues required a veritable army of sculptors and painters as well
as a large number of huge kilns. The First Emperor’s artisans could
have opted to use the same molds over and over again to produce
thousands of identical soldiers standing in strict formation. In fact,
they did employ the same molds repeatedly for different parts of the
statues but assembled the parts in many different combinations.
Consequently, the stances, arm positions, garment folds, equipment,China 185T
he Chinese first used jade—or, more precisely, nephrite—for
artworks and ritual objects in the Neolithic period. Nephrite
polishes to a more lustrous, slightly buttery finish than jadeite (the
stone Chinese sculptors preferred from the 18th century on), which
is quite glassy. Both stones are beautiful and come in colors other
than the well-known green and are tough, hard, and heavy. In China,
such qualities became metaphors for the fortitude and moral perfec-
tion of superior persons. The Chinese also believed jade possessed
magical qualities that could protect the dead. In a Han dynasty tomb,
for example, archaeologists discovered the bodies of a prince and
princess dressed in suits composed of more than 2,000 jade pieces
sewn together with gold wire.
Because of its extreme hardness, jade could not be carved with
the Neolithic sculptor’s stone tools. Researchers can only speculate on
how these early artists were able to cut, shape, and incise the
nephrite objects found at many Neolithic Chinese sites. The sculptors
probably used cords embedded with sand to incise lines into the sur-
faces. Sand placed in a bamboo tube drill could perforate the hard
stone, but the process would have been long and arduous, requiring
great patience as well as superior skill.
Even after the invention of bronze tools, Chinese sculptors still
had to rely on grinding and abrasion rather than simple drilling and
chiseling to produce the intricately shaped, pierced, and engraved
works such as the bi(FIG. 7-5) said to have come from a royal Eastern
Zhou tomb at Jincun. Rows of raised spirals, created by laborious
grinding and polishing, decorate the disk itself. Within the inner circle
and around the outer edge of the bi are elegant dragons. The Chinese
thought dragons inhabited the water and flew between Heaven and
Earth, bringing rain, so these animals long have been symbols of good
fortune in East Asia. They also symbolized the rulers’ power to medi-
ate between Heaven and Earth. To sculpt the dragons on the bi from
Jincun required long hours of work to pierce through the hard jade.
The bi testifies to the Zhou sculptor’s mastery of this difficult material.
Chinese Jade
MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES7-5Bi disk with dragons, from Jincun(?), near Luoyang, China,
Eastern Zhou dynasty, fourth to third century bce.Nephrite, 6–^12 in
diameter. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City.
This intricately shaped jade bi required long hours of grinding, piercing,
engraving, and polishing to produce. The Chinese believed dragons
were symbols of good fortune and flew between Heaven and Earth.1 in.