History, that big vast clumsy all encompassing thing, the thing that just is, that just happened, that was simply us living without us worrying if, in the future, it would be all neat and definable or cateorizeable, that thing that we have some compulsion to define and organize ...
Sometimes the past, we find, has indeed already been defined, by the actions and usually the madness of one person.
Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Ghengis Khan, Cleopatra, Elizabeth I ... all individuals who had remarkable influences on their time; empire builders. Civilizations creators and by the same token, civilization destroyers.
This weekend at the ROM (the Royal Ontario Museum) Collette and I got (kind of) up close and personal with just one of these builder/destroyers
Meet Qin Shi Huangdi, the First Emperor of China. We became aquainted with the Emperor at a an exhibit at the museum that featured pieces excavated from his tomb in China, considered the largest royal burial tomb ever discovered, including members of his famous terracotta warriors
Qin is the individual generally credited with uniting all the nations of China ... his name would be pronounced "Chin" so that gives you some indication. From a collection of smaller, warring kingdoms, Qin made his new nation, which included its first full time professional army, organized systems of trade, currency etc, pretty much out of the force of his own will
And quite a will it was
It was Emperor Qin who started the construction of the Great Wall
He was also responsible for building the subject of the ROM's exhibition, his remarkable tomb. A tomb that was first discovered in the 1970's and is still being excavated at this time. A tomb, that in its entirety, was a a city, complete with buildings, and court and retainers and entertainers and soldiers, all in life size
The army is what is best know today. An army of some 8,000 soldiers complete with armour, real weapons, chariots and horses. All life sized. And each one completely unique, no one the same as the other, all with incredible detail.
The ROM has on display several of these pieces, including two of the nine generals found (so far) in the pits, a couple of horses and several soldiers including this archer
There is a full compliment of archers in the tomb, and they are arranged as they would have been in battle, with a line standing, their crossbows loaded and a line kneeling in front of them, ready to stand and fire so their companions could reload. The level of detail is pretty astonishing. Moving behind the statue, we could see the textured sole of his shoe.
As if the thousands of life sized soldier, horses and chariots weren't enough, Qin's city would not be complete in the afterlife without a full contingent of courtiers and civil officials
These court officials also have remarkable detail. There is a slit in the side of their robe where in real life, they would have their tablet for accounting. Such attention to detail can also be found in the many animals in the tomb, such as the swan that was on display, whose head was titled as if looking up at for a bit of bread.
At the museum we watched a short video about how these thousands of objects were created; each one individually cast and "cooked" via a method that cannot be replicated today. There is much about Qin's tomb that puzzles archeologists. Before the tomb was first discovered in the 70's, many of the descriptions were thought to be preposterous. No one could really conceive of building an entire army out of clay, or equipping them with real weapons, or building huge structures underground ...
There were also descriptions that Qin wanted to mimic nature as well as man made objects. Ancient texts described rivers of mercury to represent actual Chinese rivers. Many scholars dismissed this idea ... until recently, when high mercury levels were recorded underneath the funeral mound
Seeing these objects, especially the beautiful and totally life like statues was impressive. Knowing that are thousands of more just as detailed, just as beautiful, was more impressive. But learning that Qin did all of this, the tomb, the terracotta army, the great wall, the creation of a unified state, in only 15 years ...
It rather boggles the mind. So much, in such a short period of time. Of course, Qin was quite mad or went mad at the end and he was entirely ruthless. Not only characters of clay were entombed down there, so were all his concubines who had not given birth and so were all the artisans, probably why we lost their knowledge.
He was ruthless on many levels and his tremendous conceit of fashioning himself a perfect life sized after life bankrupted the nation and eventually turned his own people upon him. The dynasty that followed Qin, the Han dynasty, learned from his mistakes. Their rulers also buried with them soldiers to take in to the afterlife but they were much smaller and much more modest
Qin must be regarded as one of the greatest empire builders in history. By consolodating the warring kingdoms he actually brought peace and stability to the area. He organized commerce and unified a vast and diversified people. But his arrogance, the very drive that helped him create China, also turned it against him in the long run
Arrogance, madness, vision .. it's all up to interpretation. In less than 20 years the First Emperor created a nation and oversaw the creation of objects that when viewed now, inspire awe.
Soldiers of clay, beautifully preserved. You can no longer see the blood
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