China's Buried Archers

I've always been interested about archeological findings, especially figures. When National Geographic came out with their article on "China's Terra-Cotta Warriors" during October 1996, I had to write about it. The first sentence says it all: "After 2,200 years an armored archer still scans the horizon for enemies of Qin Shi Huang, China's first Emperor."

Qin Shi Huang developed many new ideas with his country: the bronze coins, written language, currency, standardized weights and measure, and built the Great Wall. He wanted to take his army with him when he died. Historians think that over 700,000 laborers toiled 36 years to build his monument. He ruled for 11 years, and was 49 when he died.

Many articles can be found on this burial site — the standing soldiers, etc., but very few are about the archers. These are life-size statues of the terra-cotta army that is slowly being unearthed near the city of Xian, China. Soldiers and archers are ready to fight and defend their Emperor. Though these figures are dated 221 B.C., well before the Middle Ages, the outfits they wore never changed very drastically from century to century until the modern era.

There are four pits to the excavation work. The archers are in Pit 2. They were kneeling and standing who "rained arrows on the foe." There is a feeling that other sites than these, might be in the same area. Reopening excavation of Pit 2 began March 1994. Pit 2 has archers that are in much better condition. Archeologists think that this was because most of the archers were in a kneeling position when rebels set fire to the site and the roof collapsed, four years after the Emperor's death.

The colours the archers wore were recreated by Doug Stern. He painted an image by computer using fragments of the original paint, which were found on a few statues. "The ancient pigments were made from minerals mixed with binding materials such as animal blood or egg white. Charcoal may have tinted the hair." The pants of the archer are a royal blue with a wide purple band around the hem, the purple band matches the under tunic, which looks like it was slit on the sides. The over tunic has elongated sleeves that were pushed up the arm. The tunic's color was green, with some sort of white undershirt showing on the folded back cuffs, and at the neckline. The white cloth seems to be wrapped around the neck, giving the appearance of a muslin-like texture.

The archer wore leather plate armor, that looks riveted as well as tied in a decorative manner with red strips of leather or heavy cloth. His hair was tied on top in loops by a leather band. Each terra-cotta face is distinctive, and experts believe that real soldiers served as models. The pictures in this article are outstanding. A must read!