Standing at about 5 feet 6 inches tall, frozen in military
formation, dressed in full uniform and over 2,000 years old,
ancient Chinese terra-cotta warrior statues are considered by some
to be the eighth wonder of the world.
A discussion of these figures will take place Saturday when the
Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA holds a lecture called
“Terra-cotta Armies Large and Small: New Finds from the
Chinese Imperial Tombs,” in the Lenart Auditorium in the
Fowler Museum.
The discussion is free for the public.
Flying in from China, Professor Jianxin Wang, deputy director of
the Museum of Qin Shihuang’s Terra-cotta Army and chair of
the Archaeology Department at Northwest University in Xi’an
and Zhongli Zhang, will be leading Saturday’s lecture.
In addition, Professor Lothar von Falkenhausen, a UCLA art
history professor, will be speaking.
“Terra-cotta armies are considered one of the
world’s treasures. … (They are) so unique. To have
(Professor Wang) speak about this is wonderful,” said Helle
Girey, director of public programs in the interdepartmental
graduate program in archaeology.
Constructed out of clay with exceptional detail, remains of the
armies were fist discovered in the city of Xi’an in 1974 by
some farmers digging a well.
The armies were constructed, with the aid of an estimated
700,000 laborers, to reside over the burial site of the first
emperor of Qin. Eight thousand pottery figures were sculpted at the
time to guard the emperor against afterlife altercations.
Though there are four pits that are under excavation, tourists
visiting China have the chance to see both what has been
reconstructed and what is progressively being uncovered at the
Museum of Qin Shihuang’s terra-cotta Army.
Minna Haapanen, a doctorate candidate in her last year of
Chinese archaeology at UCLA, has visited the site in China twice
and is looking forward to attending this weekend’s lecture,
referring to the experience of visiting the armies as “very
powerful.”
She said attending the lecture is a great introduction for
students interested in archaeology as the armies are “one of
the well-known major finds in China.”
Falkenhausen emphasized that the lecture will be geared toward
the general public and believes this is something many students may
find interesting.
“(It’s) a unique opportunity of great interest.
Speakers flew in from China and are speaking from immediate
experience. It should be very fresh, (they are) very prominent
archeologists,” Falkenhausen said.
Considered one of the most significant archaeological findings
of the 20th century, Falkenhausen said the importance of these
statues is even more compelling.
Because they are arranged in formation and in uniform complete
with weaponry, it gives archaeologists a clear understanding of
early Chinese military organization.
In addition, the sole fact that there are roughly 8,000 of these
warriors highlights the magnitude of organizational effort and
coordination that was involved in the manufacturing process.
“Our immediate goal is to get people excited about China
and realize that so much is happening there in archaeology and so
many extraordinary objects are coming out of the ground,”
Falkenhausen said. “We hope people realize how sophisticated
the ways of organizing large numbers of people for public works
was.”
While Zhang will describe the excavation and conservation
methods of the terra-cotta armies of the first Emperor of Qin,
Professor Wang will share more recent findings of a smaller troop
of soldiers belonging to the Han Yangling mausoleum just outside of
Xi’an.
The lecture will be conducted in Chinese, but a translator will
be present.