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Secrets of Ancient China
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00:04I'm Dan Snow and I've come to China to investigate the single largest burial
00:10site on earth. Starting with its greatest treasure, the Terracotta Army.
00:22That is one of the most wonderful views in the world. Over a thousand warriors guarding their
00:28ruler for eternity. With the possible exception of the Great Wall, there's nothing more Chinese
00:37than these warriors. And yet, a new theory suggests that this great icon of China may be guarding
00:45an explosive secret. New evidence suggests that the inspiration for all this could have
00:53come from the West.
00:57There's a possibility they really have some other cultural stimulation.
01:01That is such an important idea.
01:03The person who made it had an understanding of the anatomy. That is extremely surprising.
01:08It's often thought China grew up isolated from the West until Italian explorer Marco Polo came
01:15here in the 13th century. But if we could prove that wrong by a thousand years, it would rewrite
01:22the history books.
01:25To help in my search, I'm joined by two expert investigators, Alice Roberts and Albert Lin.
01:34As our medical scientist, Alice will be examining any human remains buried here.
01:39This doesn't look like a typically East Asian skull. Albert will use the latest imaging technology
01:46to try and find the first roads joining East and West. If I'm right, then what I'm standing
01:53on right here could be one of the roads built by the first emperor. And I'll be interrogating
01:59the secrets of the emperor's mausoleum, looking for the traces of Western technology.
02:04Oh, look at that. That's fantastic.
02:12Together we'll be exploring an extraordinary possibility that East and West were connected
02:19far earlier than anyone thought possible. And that connection changed the face of China.
02:36This is the starting point for our investigation. One of the most hallowed sites in all of China.
02:43The burial grounds of the first emperor.
02:49Oh, yeah. That, according to legend, is the first emperor's tomb.
02:56Albert is setting out to survey the entire burial site by climbing the tomb.
03:08In over 2,000 years, no one has been inside this sacred earth pyramid.
03:18It's pretty incredible. The emperor's tomb is right beneath my feet. He was buried 50 metres
03:28below the surface of this mound.
03:31And the Chinese government has decided to protect it further by denying access to the public.
03:41It's like being on top of Tutankhamun's tomb, but not being able to get inside. Maybe for
03:47a good reason. Nobody really knows what's in there.
03:54Even from the top of the overgrown tomb, there's only one way to see the surrounding site.
04:24The nearby hills are studded with top-secret military installations. And it's taken us to
04:30take us months of negotiating with the Chinese army to get permission to do this.
04:37But once in the air, it's clear it was worth the effort.
04:44Look at that. It just keeps on going. It just expands. The exterior walls of the mound are over there.
04:50At 100 square kilometres, this is the biggest burial site on earth. 200 times bigger than Egypt's
04:59in the valley of the kings. Can you imagine building this for yourself? For your afterlife?
05:07And that's just what's visible on the surface. Beneath these fields, archaeologists have uncovered a vast,
05:17buried world of more than 600 pits and structures. Each one a gold mine of archaeological riches.
05:29Almost every day there are new discoveries. And we have unprecedented access to them. Anyone could potentially
05:38link China to the outside world in the third century BC. This was the era of classical ancient Greece. A
05:48time it was
05:49always assumed when China existed in total isolation. That assumption started to crumble because of the first
05:58discovery they made here. The Terracotta Army.
06:05It's not these buildings over here. It's the building. It's that one. It's the one beyond.
06:16The Terracotta Army lies a kilometre and a half away to the east.
06:22Today, it's one of the biggest tourist attractions on earth. But few people realise this extraordinary collection
06:29of figures contains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in China's history.
06:38No-one has ever been able to explain their origins.
06:45The mystery began when all this was farmers' fields.
06:50And one of those fields yielded a life-sized Terracotta head. It was 1974.
06:59Look at that. So what's happening here? This is right at the beginning of the excavation, I presume.
07:05This is the situation that was created by the Ma-Yong Ken. This is the beginning of the excavation.
07:10This is the beginning of the 74th century.
07:12This is the beginning of the 74th century.
07:13So that's you?
07:13Yeah.
07:14Yeah.
07:15Fantastic.
07:1842-year-old Yuan Zhongyi was the first archaeologist sent here from Beijing.
07:48What was the thing which most surprised you?
07:51What was the thing which most surprised you?
07:531.
07:54What was thective art?
07:542.
07:573.
07:584.
08:004.
08:005.
08:044.
08:076.
08:106.
08:141.
08:17turned into decades.
08:19And today I'm coming to meet the person
08:21who's continuing his pioneering work,
08:24his former assistant, Janice Zhuzhin-Li.
08:26Hi, Janice.
08:27Yeah, hi.
08:29How are you?
08:29I'm fine, how are you?
08:30Very good.
08:31They believe the emperor's terracotta army
08:33is an exact copy of the real thing.
08:36So this was going to be his army in the afterlife?
08:40Yeah, in the afterlife, to protect him.
08:43What I really noticed looking around is,
08:46I think they all look different.
08:48I can't see any two that are the same.
08:50Some of them have got a bit of a belly on them,
08:51some of them are very, very tall.
08:53Were they all individually crafted?
08:55They're really quite individual.
08:59You see the moustache is different,
09:01and also the eye shape.
09:04This stunning realism amplifies
09:06the great mystery surrounding these figures.
09:09Where do they come from?
09:12Because they're nothing like any figure
09:14made in China before them.
09:19Let me show you the terracotta figures made in China
09:22before the Qing terracotta warrior.
09:24Okay.
09:25So the figurines is really small.
09:27Okay.
09:28In small size, about ten inches.
09:30Oh, so tiny.
09:31So that's very tiny.
09:32And suddenly they start producing this.
09:34Yeah, and this about two meters.
09:36So something has changed.
09:37Yes.
09:37These warriors are far more sophisticated,
09:39much bigger, and much more realistic.
09:40Yeah, much more detailed.
09:42But were they all made in China?
09:44Yeah.
09:44Let me show you the stamps here.
09:46This is the name of the artisan.
09:48So this terracotta warrior is produced locally.
09:53The big question is, how did Chinese craftsmen achieve such an incredible transformation?
10:01Like going from a stick man to a Leonardo in a single step?
10:08Something remarkable happened here 2,200 years ago.
10:14To understand quite how remarkable, I need to put it in a global context.
10:20The world at the time of the first emperor, around 220 BC.
10:27Over here, right on the eastern edge of the Eurasian landmass, you've got the Chinese world,
10:34a competing cluster of mini-states over there.
10:39Over on the west of Eurasia, you've got the Roman Empire starting to expand over here.
10:45And you've got Greece over there.
10:47Now, what's going on artistically in east and west is very different in the third century.
10:53This is a classic Greek art.
10:56Absolute high-water mark of artistic expression.
10:59Beautiful, metre and a half tall, intricately painted, human in its look.
11:05But over here, in the Chinese world, as Janice has showed me, you've got that.
11:10Just centimetres tall, far more basic.
11:13Then, something changes.
11:15In fact, everything changes.
11:17There's a revolution.
11:18Suddenly, in 220 BC, and just after that, you get the Terracotta Warriors.
11:24Light-years ahead of what's gone before.
11:27It starts to look far less like its predecessor, and far more like what's going on in the western world.
11:35Both life-size, both life-like attempts at realism, using paint and the sculpture to reflect the realities of the
11:44human body, the human form.
11:46And this couldn't be more important, because it's always been assumed that China developed in isolation.
11:52But if that's not the case, if the first emperor of China imported western ideas and techniques to create his
11:59extraordinary necropolis,
12:02well, that forces us to completely rewrite the history books.
12:16If you're going to rewrite the history books, you need evidence.
12:19You need a lot of evidence.
12:20And I think there isn't enough evidence just of the Terracotta Warriors.
12:23This is a theory that turns on its head centuries of thinking about the relationship between China and the West.
12:29You can't just base it all on one statue.
12:34It just seems that there are so many mysteries associated with this place.
12:37It's phenomenal.
12:39It just feels as though there's an awful lot more to be discovered.
12:41There is a history, a Chinese history, so maybe there's a lot to the stories that were written in this
12:48historical text.
12:48It's amazing to have those texts as well. How fantastic.
12:51OK, this is it. It's called the Shiji.
12:54We got 20 pages of a text that was written over a hundred years later by the first Chinese historian
13:01called Smaqian.
13:02He talks about the first emperor's tomb, but he doesn't even mention the Terracotta Warriors.
13:06They don't even get a mention.
13:07You know, what is now one of the most important sites on earth doesn't even get a mention in this.
13:10And unfortunately, he doesn't mention foreigners or people from beyond Central Asia.
13:17So there are gaps in the history.
13:18There's big gaps in the history.
13:19So we're relying on you guys.
13:21Well, you know, the extent of this place is huge.
13:25So what we're looking at actually here is the main burial mound.
13:28And the Terracotta Warriors are pretty far off to the east side of the entire burial complex.
13:34And, you know, what I think is the interesting question is, is there a road network that extends from this?
13:41Do you think you could ever find connections with points further west?
13:44It's hard to say because it's going to go, you know, obviously the roads meander and turn over time.
13:48But I think what's exciting is if we can start to use different technologies and maybe we can start to
13:53see the traces of where these roads were going from this one very important place, obviously.
13:59I'm really interested to know if there's anything else here in terms of the archaeology, in terms of the material
14:03culture, that could point to a western influence or a western connection.
14:09Or indeed, you know, any evidence of westerners ever having been here.
14:13The assumption, I think, is that this whole site was built, what, in ten years or so, is that right?
14:18It was very fast, yeah.
14:19And so it seems like the evolution of the material and the types of artistry that was created over time
14:24is pretty remarkable from the beginning to the end.
14:29Yeah, right.
14:29It doesn't just spring into being with no tradition of it at all.
14:37So far, our only evidence lies in the terracotta warriors themselves.
14:43If they were created with some kind of outside influence, can we find traces of it in the way they
14:49were made?
14:53To find out, Alice and I are going to take a pottery lesson.
14:59We found an instructor, Mr Han, who runs a factory producing replica warriors.
15:07He's also studied how the originals were made over 2,000 years ago.
15:12What do you do with this?
15:13We're building it up.
15:15Today, the original團 is this.
15:17This is a piece.
15:18After it's done.
15:21Apparently the bodies are not sculpted,
15:23but made with the kind of coil pot technique most of us have tried at school.
15:32Looking at the ranks of terracotta soldiers,
15:34it's clear their bodies are variations on standard shapes,
15:38with arms, legs and torsos made up of a series of clay cylinders joined together.
15:46Ooh, we're building it out, aren't we?
15:48OK.
15:49And I suppose, really, when it comes down to it,
15:51I know this is an unusual type of pot,
15:54but it really is just a big coiled pot, isn't it?
15:58What gives each warrior its sense of real, distinct character
16:02is the head and the face.
16:08And again, it's all about ease of production.
16:12The mould, we got it.
16:13This makes more sense.
16:15Moulding makes sense to me.
16:17Right, one, two, three.
16:20Yes!
16:21This is art!
16:23In fact, making the head turns out to be even easier than the body.
16:28And it seems anyone with a bit of practice
16:30could produce heads pretty quickly using this moulding technique.
16:41Oh, look at that! Look at that!
16:44That's fantastic!
16:46Old Holmes's nose needs a little bit of work there.
16:47There's something really magical about putting a lump of clay into a mould like that
16:53and then suddenly what you've got is a face looking back at you. Brilliant.
16:57The key to this is the original head from which the mould was made.
17:03Someone had to sculpt that head using techniques that were unheard of in China.
17:10This is our first clear sign of an outside influence.
17:20From the makers' marks on the original warriors, they have identified just five separate workshops
17:26making the entire terracotta army.
17:33So the mass production of thousands of warriors could have been based on a combination of skilled Chinese potters
17:40guided by a small team of outside instructors.
17:44Is it possible those instructors came from the west?
17:51A few miles from the emperor's mausoleum lies his ancient capital city, Xi'an.
18:03It's really only in the last 20 years that China has opened up to the Western world.
18:10And it's not hard to imagine how extraordinary it would have been for Westerners
18:14to find themselves here in the third century BC.
18:21In a totally alien culture on the other side of the world.
18:27If that is what happened, it took someone of extraordinary vision to make it happen.
18:36China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi.
18:43This was a revolutionary ruler who transcended all the boundaries of his age.
18:50In 221 BC, at the age of 40, he put an end to 250 years of war, conquering six neighboring
18:59states.
19:00And forging the civilization we know today as China.
19:06This was the ancient foundation of the modern superpower.
19:10The emperor dreamt that his nation would last forever.
19:14And he wanted to stamp his mark on it.
19:21Yet if he recruited Westerners to help him create his mausoleum,
19:25bringing them here could have been one of the greatest challenges of his reign.
19:32There is no history of an established route in 3rd century BC connecting China with the West.
19:40The Silk Road is not mentioned by name for centuries.
19:46So did the emperor open this world-famous highway long before the history books acknowledge?
19:54Our only contemporary reference does suggest road building was one of the emperor's major priorities.
20:01Now, according to the Shi Ji, in 220 BC, after a tour of inspection over terrible, bumpy roads,
20:10the first emperor ordered the construction of a series of speedways radiating out from the capital.
20:17But is there any trace of that network?
20:24The mausoleum's archaeology team has invited Albert to see a new excavation very close to the emperor's tomb.
20:30Here it is.
20:38Hi.
20:39Here's your name here.
20:40Let's go down here.
20:42Lead archaeologist Zhang Weijing believes they have uncovered an ancient road.
20:50I'll peel this tarback.
20:55At first sight, it looks narrow for an imperial highway.
21:00okay so you know when i first came in here i thought that they were excavating the length of
21:06the road i mean it's you know it looks about the size of a road but what we're seeing from
21:10the
21:11tracks is that actually the road is going this way oh yeah oh yeah you really get a sense of
21:18it here
21:22jang believes this is the cross section of a vast multi-lane highway
21:25built to bring men and materials to the emperor's tomb towards the mausoleum
21:32okay so this was part of the i guess the construction process you know wow look at that
21:40when you look at you know the size of that mound must have been a lot of material that was
21:45moved to
21:45build basically a mountain these are the tracks of carts that i've pressed down in the earth
21:54this chin dynasty over 2000 years ago
22:00the huge width of this highway shows the chinese were masters of road engineering
22:05on a vast scale capable of building the national network described in the shiji
22:13perhaps reaching beyond china itself
22:19we need to find that hidden network
22:24which means albert will need the latest aerial sensing technology
22:32my own investigation meanwhile is gathering pace
22:37the terracotta army gave us the first traces of possible western input
22:43but i've just come across a paper written by a german academic describing a set of terracotta figures
22:51whose bodies show unmistakable signs of a western hand
22:58no one knows what these figures are meant to be the chinese call them the acrobats
23:09they were discovered in a small pit very close to the emperor's tomb
23:15where i've arranged to meet dr lucas nickel
23:22ah lucas hi
23:23dan nice seeing you it's very good to be here i've read your paper have a look at this one
23:30here we have a figure with a semi-naked body yeah he is just this little piece of cloth around
23:35his hip and
23:36what we see is a building of a body yeah you see if you look at the arms you know
23:41we have a musculature
23:42you know we have an idea and understanding of ligaments in his hand also big muscles over the kneecap
23:48if you remember the terracotta warriors are basically standing that way it's like a torso
23:53with arms and legs just stuck in but there's no attempt to build a proper working human body
24:01there are believed to be more than 50 of these acrobats and the conservation team is still trying
24:07to piece them together from thousands of fragments unlike the terracotta warriors they're not made to a template
24:18each one appears to be individually sculpted by an experienced artist
24:28this is now a totally different quality of sculpture they want to show an anatomically correct
24:35movement in a quite acceptable believable way he puts one foot in front the other one behind
24:40and you see that the whole body the legs the knees the hip and the upper part of the body
24:46are moving
24:47along your first impression that is classically greek yes absolutely no question about that it's
24:53something we only find in greece only the greeks would do that the people who made this had an
25:00understanding of how greeks would make sculpture that is extremely surprising to show a human body
25:06in this kind of convincing lifelike stance that is extremely complicated that is something we know in
25:13greece it had taken centuries to learn this but suddenly at the end of the third century bc in china
25:19we get that and that is very close to a greek idea so you're seriously suggesting that that statue
25:25might have been sculpted by a greek sculpt who came all the way out here and made it for the
25:30emperor
25:30well i imagine a greek sculptor may have come here to train the locals it's just that's i mean that's
25:39amazing
25:43this feels like a huge breakthrough possible evidence of western instructors working in china
25:512 200 years ago perhaps the same people who helped to create the terracotta army
26:01but how did the emperor know where to find them
26:06how did they get here
26:18at the end of the fourth century bc alexander the great bursts out of greece here out of macedon
26:24and conquers a huge empire in asia
26:31so alexander the great's empire reaches its high water mark around about the time of his death 323 bc
26:40then in well from 220 bc onwards another young charismatic leader chinchuwandi creates
26:50the beginnings of modern china unifying china now did this first emperor of china take advantage of the
26:59narrow gap that now existed between the greek world and his chinese world to import ideas techniques materials
27:07maybe even people
27:11suddenly china doesn't seem so isolated
27:17albert is already planning his search for the road that might have bridged that gap
27:21that's about a mile right so about a mile from here to here
27:24while alice is looking for the human evidence of foreigners who might have come here
27:32so far they've found more than 600 separate pits in this vast mausoleum complex
27:41and one of the things they've discovered is that the emperor didn't just take terracotta figures to the
27:56next world
27:57real people were sacrificed to go with him
28:04this skull is from one of 99 shallow graves just north of the emperor's tomb
28:11suggesting their occupants were very close to the emperor himself
28:17the first revelation is that this skull like all the others belong to a young woman
28:29and alice has found a passage in the shiji that could explain their mass burial
28:35of the women in the harem of the former ruler it would be unfitting to have those who bore no
28:40sons
28:41sent elsewhere all were accordingly ordered to accompany the dead man
28:47which resulted in the death of many women if this skull belonged to one of those women
28:52she was sacrificed for failing to give the emperor a son
28:59alice is going to see if she can find out more about this girl's life
29:03as well as her untimely death from lead archaeologist mr ju
29:08so you think these bones could possibly be the female consorts of the emperor the concubines
29:16you were able to meet the ebbs
29:20it would think both of these women in the like
29:22this is the the
29:22the
29:22it would be impossible not
29:50They also have poignant evidence of how she lived.
30:10These pearls are absolutely beautiful.
30:14But we are looking at the jewellery that was worn by a woman who lived in the 3rd century BC,
30:20a woman who, during life, enjoyed a special position at court and high status.
30:26But she was killed, potentially brutally killed.
30:31And her only crime was to have been a concubine of the first emperor of China.
30:47This tragic story may yet have another twist.
30:54Before China was unified, local rulers used concubines to forge alliances with neighbouring states through marriage.
31:04It's quite possible the first emperor took that idea beyond China's borders for the first time and brought in foreign
31:11concubines.
31:16The mausoleum is beginning a DNA study to try and trace the girls' origins.
31:22The problem is, unlocking those secrets could take many months.
31:29Alice's search for Westerners in China continues.
31:46Albert is ready to start his aerial search for the emperor's road network.
31:53What we want to do is create a systematic, a systematic path.
31:58So this is...
31:59They're staying close to the tomb, where they already know that there was road construction.
32:04It's open field.
32:05Should we try it?
32:12Albert has borrowed a prototype, super-sensitive infrared camera.
32:17This is the first time it's ever been used in aerial archaeology.
32:22Over time. Oh, there we are at the very edge.
32:24And we're looking for a change in the temperature.
32:28The blue area is where it's a little bit colder.
32:30The red area is where it's a little bit warmer.
32:32And we're talking very subtle amounts here.
32:35The camera is able to pick up the faintest traces left deep in the earth by centuries of human disturbance.
32:44Albert adds this to satellite imagery, creating a comprehensive, deep-time picture of the site.
32:51Have you ever seen Damien excavate?
32:55I haven't found it, but there's a path.
32:57Can you see it?
32:57Yeah.
32:58And right away, there is something that Zhang hasn't seen before.
33:03Look at this road. This road is a very small road.
33:12A diagonal line on the landscape. It just doesn't seem to belong.
33:21I think this is a big part of the road.
33:26I think it's a big part of the road.
33:27So, you're saying that if this is man-made, then it's a game-changer.
33:34Really exciting.
33:38Have a great day.
33:42Could this be the first sign of the road network?
33:47The only way to know is to get out into the field and do a ground survey.
33:52To make sure that what Albert's seen from above is nothing obviously modern like a sewer pipe or gas line.
34:10All right.
34:12Let's go take a look.
34:17This is really cool.
34:22It's clearly not a pipeline.
34:24In fact, it doesn't seem to have any obvious use.
34:29At least, not anymore.
34:43Let's go.
34:47Okay.
34:49And where we're standing right now is right here.
34:53And what I didn't know until just this moment was what this was.
34:57But now I'm standing here and what it is, is this massive trench over six feet below the surface of
35:05the rest of these farms with no real explanation for its existence.
35:10There's no reason to have this huge trench here.
35:12There's no river here.
35:13There's nothing else.
35:14But if I'm right, then what I'm standing on right here could be one of the roads, of the network
35:20of roads built by the first emperor.
35:25It's a breakthrough, but in the wrong direction.
35:28The new line goes northeast towards the interior of China.
35:32We need something heading northwest.
35:41So, it's back to the aerial data.
35:52There's this faint signature of some kind of anomaly that's running in northwest.
35:58You see that right there?
36:02It looks like it's meeting right at the same point.
36:06And it looks like it's the exact same feature that we just ground truth.
36:10What looks like to be another road here.
36:14And they're literally radiating out.
36:18Our big question is where would the western road be going to?
36:22And how far?
36:25The rest of that ancient road is buried under the modern landscape.
36:30But there is a natural line it could have followed 2,000 years ago, along the Wei River Valley.
36:36And there is a possible destination described in the Shiji.
36:42The most western extent of the empire at the time was this town called Lintau.
36:52The Shiji describes it as a garrison town.
36:56You know, as part of this story of the Great Wall.
37:01The first emperor created the first Great Wall of China.
37:07Over 5,000 kilometres long, the wall's starting point and base of construction was at Lintau.
37:15It must have been a huge project.
37:19There's builders there, there's soldiers there.
37:22Communication was key and the roads that this person built, the first emperor,
37:27they were the key to that communication.
37:30Okay.
37:34Albert, how's it going?
37:36Hey Dan.
37:37What have you found?
37:38I'm actually seeing, around the first emperor's tomb site, a road going west.
37:43Really? Really?
37:45Farthest it would go, that we would know of so far, would be this town of Lintau.
37:51The most western extent of the entire empire.
37:54That is very interesting information. Congratulations.
37:59If there was a road going from here as far as Lintau,
38:03can we find any historic reference connecting Lintau to the west?
38:14What's great is there is actually another source that we've got.
38:18And it's not often talked about but it was just shown to me the other day and it's absolutely fascinating.
38:23It says, in the 26th year of the emperor, which is about 220 BC, in Lintau.
38:28It said, Da Ren appeared.
38:31That's tall men.
38:33I love that description, tall men. They didn't have a word for statue.
38:36But, this is the best bit.
38:38All dressed in foreign robes.
38:41How interesting. Statues.
38:42That is what would become known as the Silk Route through there.
38:46So, Lintau is perfectly placed. That makes a lot of sense.
38:49And there's more written about these Lintau statues.
38:54Apparently, the emperor had giant copies made in bronze to adorn his palace in Xi'an.
39:00It says, weapons from all over the empire are confiscated and melted down to be used in casting bells,
39:06bell stands and 12 men made of metal.
39:08He's melting down all of those weapons and creating these statues as a symbol of his power over that empire.
39:15And it's straight out of the playbook of the great conquerors of the Mediterranean.
39:19The Alexanders, the Ramesses, erecting massive statues to reinforce their own might, dominance and legitimacy.
39:27Sadly, there are no traces left of the emperor's original bronze statues.
39:33But the story suggests he wanted the kudos of exotic foreign culture.
39:39And we may have discovered the origins of the sculptors who brought that culture to China.
39:45Thanks to a new discovery made by Dr Lucas Nickel.
39:51Ever seen something comparable?
39:54That looks very familiar.
39:57Or that one?
39:58That is very similar to the stuff we're seeing here at the Terracotta Army.
40:01Absolutely.
40:02I mean, this idea of realism and this idea to try to make a believable figure,
40:08that is totally comparable to what we see in China.
40:11That is a sculpture made in Khalchayan, in Afghanistan,
40:14where the Greeks established a lot of cities at this time.
40:17What we have here, that's a local ruler who apparently employed Greek craftsmen to make sculptures for his palace.
40:25These Greek craftsmen had the idea, well, why not even moving further east
40:30to the Chinese, of which we know that they are extremely rich.
40:35And that's going on in what is now Afghanistan.
40:38I mean, that's not very, very far from here, really.
40:41It's about the same distance to Athens as it is to the Chinese capital, Xi'an.
40:48Albert believes he's found the start of the emperor's road network.
40:52And his hunch that that network could go much further west seems to be correct.
41:00Albert, how are you doing?
41:02Just seeing some good stuff as well.
41:03Oh, yeah.
41:04Some fun stuff.
41:06Lucas just showed me some extraordinary images of art from Afghanistan on the borders of modern-day China
41:16and on what would become known as the silver.
41:19Looks quite familiar.
41:20Looks quite familiar.
41:22I mean, we're not talking about people coming from Athens.
41:24We're talking from Afghanistan, Tajikistan here.
41:26Basically, what we're saying is that very similar art styles, very similar timeframe,
41:30and a bunch of connection points between these two.
41:34Bang.
41:35East and West.
41:36Cultural exchange.
41:39We know the emperor has Western-style statues created for his capital.
41:44We think there were itinerant Greek sculptors moving east to a city in what is now Afghanistan.
41:50And it seems there was probably a road linking Xi'an at least as far as Lintau.
41:56So a picture is emerging of a cultural highway between west and east.
42:02A prototype silk road.
42:08But the picture is not yet complete.
42:12Hello.
42:14Oh, hey, Alice. How you doing?
42:15We've got archaeology.
42:16We've got a culture of art, techniques of art.
42:20What we don't have is only people.
42:22You're the people person.
42:24It would be nice to see some evidence.
42:25I'm headed now to the Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology.
42:29I'm hoping that I'm going to see some of the mausoleum workers' bones.
42:35I've talked to the archaeologists and they've hinted that there might be some kind of Western connection there.
42:41So I'm really intrigued to have a look at them.
42:44The remains Alice is going to see were found several kilometres east of the Terracotta Army.
42:50They're believed to be tomb workers because they were buried in a mass grave of the same period, close to
42:56the remains of a pottery kiln.
43:03There's one skull in particular that I'm really intrigued to have a look at because it might offer some kind
43:10of connection to people outside of China.
43:15The Shaanxi Institute is the central depository for all human remains found in the emperor's mausoleum.
43:23Because of their sacred and sensitive nature, those remains are closely guarded and access rarely granted.
43:32According to the Shiji, the emperor brought 700,000 men from all across China and possibly beyond to build his
43:41mausoleum.
43:42More than 20 times the number who built Egypt's Great Pyramid at Giza.
43:50And Professor Sun has evidence that the human cost was correspondingly high.
43:59Gosh. So do you think this would have gone round the neck of these individuals?
44:04So they're hardly willing workers. Would you consider them to be slaves?
44:11Criminals? Criminals who were then conscripted to come and work on the tomb?
44:16Yeah. And presumably executed. I mean, these are, these are young men.
44:21We presume this is not a natural death that they suffered.
44:29Among the mass victims of the emperor's brutal forced labour, there is one individual, according to Professor Sun, whose features
44:38don't look Chinese.
44:43It is, it's quite intriguing to look at him.
44:46This doesn't really look like a typically East Asian skull.
44:53I'm looking for features which, which might be typical of an East Asian skull and, and they're not there.
44:59Instead, this skull has got quite prominent nasal bones and its cheekbones are different as well.
45:06They're not the, the flattened malars or cheekbones that I would expect to see.
45:11I think it would be fantastic if we could do a bit of further analysis on this skull.
45:17There's a tantalising possibility we could be looking at an outsider, perhaps from beyond China's western border.
45:26A simple DNA test would confirm it, but they won't let Alice take a sample.
45:31Precise cranial measurements are the only other option.
45:35What would be great is if we could reconstruct the face of this young man so that we can see
45:41what he would have looked like in life.
45:48Reconstructing the face involves weeks of digital recreation, building muscle groups onto a computer model of the skull.
45:59But the real scientific data lies in the skull itself.
46:06Alice is using a global database of skull types, which may help pin down the origins of our tomb worker.
46:17Albert logs on to witness the long-awaited reveal.
46:20And Alice and I get ready to greet our worker face to face.
46:26Here we go.
46:31Here it is.
46:32A moment of truth.
46:34I can't wait to see what this reconstruction looks like.
46:40There it is.
46:40Oh, interesting.
46:43Oh, wow.
46:43Oh.
46:46Okay.
46:47There's all styrene sticking to him.
46:49Wow.
46:51Well, he does look incredibly realistic.
46:54What do you think, Albert?
46:56Camera's coming in for extreme close-up.
46:59The thing that sends little tingles up my spine is that this may be the closest we get to actually
47:06being in that moment, in that time.
47:08You know, this is one of the guys who actually built that entire tomb.
47:12It's quite incredible, isn't it?
47:14Look at this reconstruction.
47:15Having seen the skull in China, this is our best guess of what this man actually looked like in life.
47:24My analysis of the skull was quite interesting.
47:27I took lots of measurements of the skull when we were out in China and came out as very definitely
47:33not Western.
47:34He's not from the West.
47:35I see.
47:37It doesn't help us, does it?
47:39It doesn't help us.
47:39It doesn't help us.
47:40It's not the smoking gun.
47:41Tantalising.
47:42It would have been very nice to find a ginger bloke in the tomb of the first emperor.
47:49But we would have been incredibly lucky, I suppose, to find the one skeleton amongst the tens of thousands that
47:57must be lying around there.
48:00The data puts our man outside mainland China, but in a vast area.
48:06From Afghanistan to the Pacific Islands.
48:10Plausible evidence that there may have been outsiders working on the tomb.
48:14And it supports the controversial theory that the first emperor could have imported foreigners and foreign ideas.
48:28There are always new discoveries coming out of this vast mausoleum site.
48:37And one of them has thrown us a new line of inquiry.
48:43Not in terracotta, but in bronze.
48:47And not of human figures, but animals.
48:51Forty-six bronze water birds were found in a pit north of the emperor's tomb.
48:56All beautifully arranged as though feeding at an ornamental pond.
49:07It's a type of bronze sculpture that appeared in China almost overnight.
49:14Nothing like it had been seen here before the first emperor.
49:27It's such a beautiful piece of sculpture.
49:31And it's not just a beautiful object.
49:34It might be the techniques for making it came from the West.
49:39The technique is called direct lost wax.
49:43And its origins can be traced back to the Mediterranean 5,000 years ago.
49:54Before I can talk to the researcher who has the key piece of evidence, I'm told I need to see
49:59the basic process.
50:00To understand quite how complex it is.
50:06As the name suggests, they start with a design carved out of wax.
50:12Then go through a series of processes to replace that wax with bronze.
50:18So this is a sort of mould that gets created around the wax.
50:22And it's this mould that will give the shape to the bronze.
50:26It's so clever.
50:28Lost wax took centuries to perfect in the West.
50:32And watching it today, I can understand why.
50:38So this is the big moment.
50:39It's all about to be put together.
50:41This is the action now.
50:45Wow.
50:46Molten bronze.
50:48It's fascinating to watch.
50:50But how good are the results?
50:56Ooh.
50:57Look at that.
50:58The bronze has taken the form of that wax.
51:02Absolutely perfectly.
51:05So they're going to cut these off.
51:07Stick a head on it.
51:08Then you've got a wonderful bird.
51:11Fit for an emperor.
51:14Hot.
51:16It's clear this process is too complex to stumble on by accident.
51:21But did someone bring a version of it to China 2,000 years ago?
51:29According to Dr. Xiao Anding, there is tell-tale evidence of the direct lost wax technique.
51:38It's hidden inside this swan's graceful, delicate neck.
51:42A reinforced structural core of clay.
51:49This is evidence of a core like that, isn't it?
51:51Yeah.
51:52So if you want to create these very natural shapes, you need like a reinforcing rod running through it to
51:58give it that shape.
51:58Yeah.
51:59If you don't have this core rod, it will...
52:03Just snap off.
52:04Yeah, yeah.
52:05Xiao only discovered the core rod when he X-rayed the swan.
52:10Oh.
52:10There you go.
52:11Is that the rod?
52:12Yes, yes.
52:13Perfect.
52:14That's very clear.
52:15Yes.
52:16That's the reinforcing rod on an X-ray.
52:18Such kind of evidence we haven't seen in Chinese bronze before.
52:22We see similar things in Egypt bronze sculpture.
52:26In Egypt?
52:27Yes.
52:27Egypt bronze cat.
52:29Wow.
52:29I can show you.
52:31No.
52:31Look at that.
52:32Yes.
52:33That's uncanny.
52:34It's got the reinforcing rod there.
52:35Yes, yes, yes.
52:36This one is the same techniques with the neck.
52:41So you're saying this technique was normal in the Mediterranean and never been seen before in China?
52:46Yeah, we haven't seen it.
52:48But in this group of birds, the technique is perfect.
52:53So I think it's influenced our birds directly from the West.
52:58Wow.
52:59That's pretty good evidence.
53:07We now have strong evidence of Western metal workers in China in the 3rd century BC.
53:18How of life came fromieux?
53:19Added to the evidence of Greek-trained sculptors, it suggests there was a community of Westerners brought here by the
53:25Emperor.
53:27But unlike Terracotta, when it came to bronze, the Chinese took imported technology to a whole new level.
53:36in the heart of the mausoleum is a gallery showcasing the genius of the emperor's bronze
53:43workers objects like these two half-size replicas of imperial carriages made entirely of bronze
54:00i don't think i've ever seen anything so beautiful of this antiquity over 2 000 years this remained
54:09underground it's so lifelike you can feel the energy in those horses i love the fact that it's
54:17just waiting keen ignition ready for the emperor to rise in the afterlife take his position and be
54:25taken off to visit his new underground kingdom we're getting a clearer and clearer picture
54:39of how the emperor used western techniques to enhance his newly unified empire
54:46and creating the physical infrastructure to connect to communities far beyond his borders
54:56world but we haven't yet found evidence of western people
55:05however alice has heard about a new study of human remains from around the time of the first emperor
55:12and she's meeting its author geneticist josh juji
55:16hello nice to meet you really nice to meet you have a seat thank you
55:25thank you
55:26european specific mother counter dna
55:29the u oh yeah you
55:34and most of them are you so so you on my map here is something which is much more common
55:40much more
55:41frequent in europe definitely european looking so this is really intriguing this this must be evidence at
55:48some point then of people with european mitochondrial dna coming into asia it looks like some
55:58western europeans travel there and settle down and they die there it does make you wonder if this is
56:05evidence of people moving along a kind of preto silk route yes
56:11this dna evidence was found here on route to china and within its current border
56:21it's news alice needs to share
56:26so i just met up with josh who is the first author on this fantastic paper from zhenjiang province
56:34right where the soap road is yes okay so right over in the west of china and there they found
56:40a real
56:41mixture european mitochondrial dna lineages mixed up with east asian lineages this goes back kind of to
56:49the time of the whole alexander the great conquests and yeah yeah yeah and um and a real mixture of
56:57people i would think that there's been an inspiration across the two worlds that we haven't fully accounted for
57:12we began our journey with a simple question what could explain the terracotta army
57:23there was one explanation that was earth shattering in its implications a direct link with the western
57:30world centuries before it was thought possible this is the western end of that connection
57:40the british museum's collection of classical greek sculpture
57:49is it possible that people that learned the skills that created these masterpieces
57:56helped to forge the legacy of the first emperor of china the experts certainly think so that's
58:03possibility they really have some other culture stimulation this understanding of sculpture was
58:08absolutely extraordinary i believe greek sculpture makers moved all the way to the chinese capital
58:15and solved their trade to the first emperor and not just in terracotta
58:20i think it's influenced or borrowed directly from the west we have evidence of an ancient road network
58:28that could have brought westerners to china and dna evidence of europeans living on china's doorstep
58:36archaeological evidence to show they really have communications between these and the west
58:41i think this story rewrites the history of the birth of china today one of the most powerful
58:46nations on earth and it totally revolutionizes our understanding of relations between east and west
58:522 000 years ago but perhaps most importantly of all it provides vital context that deepens and enriches our
59:01our relationships in the present day
59:11this time tomorrow night ireland's treasures uncovered including the iconic tara brooch that's here at 10
59:18next tonight an experiment tracks the spread of a viral infection across the uk contagion the bbc4 pandemic coming up
59:31so
59:31now
59:32now
59:32now
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