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The trouble with being an ancient nation is that you are more likely to get a
real stinker for a founding father. Newer countries tend to be luckier, like
America with George Washington and his “I cannot tell a lie” routine, or
Italy with the dashing Garibaldi. But way back then, millenniums ago, cruel
tyrants seemed to dominate the business of nation-founding. In Qin
Shihuangdi, the Chinese have the poster boy for maniacal dictators.
For centuries, Qin’s tomb attracted no more attention than the many other
large earth mounds that litter the plains around Xi’an, in central China.
Then, one day in 1974, a farmer digging a well in the corner of his orchard
struck something hard with his spade. When he cleared the loose earth, what
he found was not a rock but a clay head, the first glimpse of the greatest
archeological discovery of the 20th century.
On the way to the beginning of China, windfall pomegranates had stained the
road like spilt blood. The guide was babbling about the grandeurs of Xi’an,
about how the city had been the capital of 11 Chinese dynasties, about how
it was historically so much more important than Beijing. Her chauvinism was
understandable, if a trifle relentless. Beyond the car window, on the
borders of a dusty field of haystacks, I could see small, grey steles
marking the graves of peasants who had worked these fields.
The farmer’s orchard has been replaced by a hangar covering an area as large
as a football pitch, known as Pit Number 1. We followed pathways beyond the
ticket booths, the endless gift shops and the carefully planted trees.
Inside, beneath the arching roof, I found myself gazing at one of the
world’s great sights – the terracotta warriors – the silent army of
life-size pottery soldiers that guards Qin’s tomb.
The British Museum’s The First Emperor exhibition, which opened yesterday, has
brought us a few exquisite details of this remarkable find. But nothing can
prepare you for the impact of the long ranks of figures, standing where they
were placed more than two millenniums ago. Tall, handsome men, they are
arrayed in battle formation in 11 deep columns stretching away into the
middle distance. No two are alike; each of the thousand soldiers here is an
individual portrait. But even this huge assembly is only a fraction of the
full army. Many thousands more await resurrection.
It is their misplaced confidence that is so touching. We see them now as a
lost army. They stand empty-handed. Tomb robbers stole the weapons of these
soldiers a few years after their interment; time has destroyed the rest.
Likewise, the centuries have robbed them of meaning. Excavation has revealed
them as dupes, following a discredited view of the afterlife – that it
exists as some physical extension of this world – or engaged in a ridiculous
conspiracy that the emperor was immortal.
The man they were guarding, Qin Shihuangdi, the founder of China, is a shadowy
if spectacular figure. In 221BC he managed to forge a collection of warring
states into a single political organism: China, the oldest surviving
political entity in the world. In our terms, China runs from Caesar to
George Bush. Once the contemporary and the rival of Rome, it now shares the
world stage with America.
FOR QIN SHIHUANGDI, a buried army is an entirely appropriate epitaph. Qin was
keen on burying people. He buried authors alive, having first burnt their
books. When any of his conscripted workers died on the job, he used their
bodies as landfill. When he was entombed, he arranged to have all his
childless concubines interred with him, alive. But as with most tyrants, it
wasn’t all beatings and beheadings. Qin’s list of accomplishments is
impressive.
Aside from unifying China for the first time, he standardised measurements,
minted a universal currency, created a unified law code, laid down the
tenets of written Chinese, and developed a centralised bureaucracy. He was
also an energetic builder. As well as countless palaces and more than 4,000
miles of roads and canals, he made a good start on China’s other great
tourist attraction, the Great Wall. One wonders what he might have
accomplished had he not devoted so much time to tomb-building.
With a conscripted labour force that peaked at 720,000, it took 38 years to
build his tomb. When he died on a tour of his eastern provinces, at the age
of 50, his ministers covered the corpse with fish, to disguise the smell,
and carted it home to Xi’an. They were keen to keep the death secret until
they could get the body safely into its tomb, and the succession seamlessly
arranged. The funeral must have been a grim affair. Along with the
concubines, thousands of craftsmen are believed to have been buried alive in
the tomb to keep its secrets safe.
But someone apparently leaked the master plan. Ancient records, written barely
a century after Qin’s death, describe his tomb as an extraordinary
underground landscape of palaces where ceilings are inlaid with pearls to
simulate the night sky, where rivers run with mercury and trees bear fruit
of precious stones, where gold and silver birds flit among the branches.
Historians tended to dismiss these accounts as fanciful until the discovery of
the terracotta army. If the guardians of the tomb are so numerous and so
fantastic, they now realise that the tomb itself may easily match ancient
accounts. It has not yet been opened, but most people agree that when it is,
the tomb will exceed the spectacle of its guardians. Apparently, it is
guarded by ingenious defences, so when the Chinese get round to tackling it,
they will need to be wary of the booby-trap crossbows.
The terracotta army is one of tourism’s most famous celebrities and, like any
celebrity, it is surrounded by a great deal of noise and nonsense. You need
to prepare yourself not just for the scale of the excavation but for the
scale of the crowds and the shopping opportunities. Two million people a
year visit, which works out at about 500 an hour, though on the day of my
own visit, that seemed like a serious underestimation. They bring with them
the full circus – the lecturing guides, the hawkers, the endless gift shops
selling replica warriors, the endless posing for pictures. If you had hoped
for a peaceful moment to reflect on issues of mortality and the long reach
of the past, you can forget it.
FOR THOSE who feel that tourism has defeated the terracotta army, or at least
dulled its allure, I have a hot tip. To the east of Xi’an, less than an
hour’s drive, is the tomb known as Han Yangling. Only opened in 2005, this
tomb with its adjoining museum is not only one of the best in China, but is
the best of its kind in the world.
Its occupant is Jing Di, who ruled in the second century BC. He is the
antidote to Qin Shihuangdi. Historians record a beneficent ruler who
followed the Taoist principles of “doing nothing against nature”. He made
peace with the northern nomads, lessened taxes and labour duties, and
reduced some of the law’s crueller punishments. And there is no record of
his having buried anyone alive.
Perhaps people get the tomb museums they deserve. Jing Di has an exquisitely
designed visitor complex that has been constructed over the tomb
excavations. Sloping ramps lead to large underground halls where glass walls
and glass floors allow unimpeded views of the excavation trenches. The soft
lighting, the sensitive and unobtrusive architecture, plus the fact that
there are few other people here, allow you to savour the strangeness and the
romance of the moment – you are peering into the tomb of a Chinese emperor
who died more than 2,000 years ago – in a way that is denied you at the
terracotta army.
The artefacts lie as they were found; many still partially encased in earth. The
collapsed remains of a chariot are like a skeleton on the pale earth floor.
Rows of lacquer boxes lie unopened. Pale tapestries blossom in the
excavation pits like strange lichens. The sentinel soldiers, tilted with
time, lean against one another, their long, elegant faces turned up towards
the light. They have a strange innocence. They might have been choirboys. It
is a tribute to how well this museum works that it feels more like an art
gallery. The display is so sensitively done that it is the beauty of the
artefacts that first impresses you.
The sensual piles of hundreds of terracotta jars are like a modern work of
“found” art. The endless figures are like an Antony Gormley installation.
The soldiers still emerging from the earth are reminiscent of Michelangelo’s
slaves, still partially trapped in stone. The much more famous terracotta
army, of course, is a great spectacle, and not to be missed, but it is at
Han Yangling that you feel the breath of the past, as well as the excitement
of archeological discovery, undisturbed by the tourist circus that threatens
to overwhelm China’s First Emperor.
Stanley Stewart travelled to Xi’an as a guest of Steppes Travel The First
Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army is at the British Museum, WC1, until April
6, 2008; call 020 7323 8181 or visit www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/firstemperor
for tickets; adults £12, under16s free
Travel brief
Getting there: there are no direct flights from the UK to Xi’an, but
Air China (00 800 8610 0999, www.air-china.co.uk
) has flights from Heathrow from £482 (via Beijing). Alternatively, fly to
Beijing with either Air China or British Airways (0870 850 9850, www.ba.com
) from £395, and take a sleeper train (about £30pp one way).
Getting around: the terracotta army and the Han Yangling museum are
both about an hour from Xi’an. There are tourist minibuses that run to both
sites from the railway station. Hotels offer group tours for about £25pp,
including entry fees, lunch and guide. A taxi for the day is about £20.
Where to stay: Sofitel (www.sofitel.com
) is the best hotel in town: five-star, centrally located, with all
facilities; rooms from £90. A cheaper option is the excellent Xiang Zi Men
youth hostel (00 86 29 6286 7888, yhaxzm@163.com
) in an atmospheric traditional building. You don’t need to be a member or
youthful, and it is not dormitories. Double rooms from £18.50; the best
rooms are 103 or 104; family rooms from £35.
Tour operators: Steppes Travel (01285 880980, www.steppestravel.co.uk
) specialises in tailor-made itineraries. A 15-day tour costs from £2,200pp,
with four days spent in Beijing and three days each in Xi’an, Guilin and
Shanghai, including flights from Heathrow, transfers, B&B accommodation,
entrance fees and guides. Alternatively, try the Ultimate Travel Company
(020 7386 4646, www.theultimatetravelcompany.co.uk
) or Bales Worldwide (0845 057 1819, www.balesworldwide.com
). Tombs: the Terracotta Army Museum is open daily, 7am-6pm; entry £6.50.
The Han Yangling Museum is open daily, 8.30am-7pm; entry £6. Don’t miss the
3-D film.
