2011/01/01 by Marcos Martinón‐Torres, Xiuzhen Li, Andrew Bevan +3 · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · Engineering · #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Chinese history and philosophy #Archaeological Research and Protection #Terracotta #Emperor #Archaeology #China #History #Engineering #Ancient history
paper · pdf · doi:10.5334/ai.1316
openalex publication_date 2011/01/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/27
The Terracotta Army of the First Emperor of China is one of the most emblematic archaeological sites in the world. Many questions remain about the logistics of technology, standardisation and labour organisation behind the creation of such a colossal construction in just a few decades over 2,000 years ago. An ongoing research project co-ordinated between the UCL Institute of Archaeology and the Emperor Qin Shihang's Terracotta Army Museum is beginning to address some of these questions. This paper outlines some results of the typological, metric, microscopic, chemical and spatial analyses of the 40,000 bronze weapons recovered with the Terracotta Warriors. Thanks to a holistic approach developed specifically for this project, it is possible to reveal remarkable aspects of the organisation of the Qin workforce in production cells, of the standardisation, efficiency and quality-control procedures employed, and of the sophisticated technical knowledge of the weapon-makers.