- 13 hours ago
Mighty tomb guarded by the Terracotta Warriors, a site 200 times bigger than Egypt's Valley Of The Kings and the final resting place of China's first emperor.
探讨秦始皇陵规模, 兵马俑工艺起源, 及公元前 3 世纪中西方是否存在早期接触如希腊雕塑技术是否影响秦俑...引用考古线索（如新疆遗址线粒体 DNA、百戏俑写实风格、青铜水禽铸造痕迹）推测西方元素可能早于丝绸之路传入...
探讨秦始皇陵规模, 兵马俑工艺起源, 及公元前 3 世纪中西方是否存在早期接触如希腊雕塑技术是否影响秦俑...引用考古线索（如新疆遗址线粒体 DNA、百戏俑写实风格、青铜水禽铸造痕迹）推测西方元素可能早于丝绸之路传入...
Category
📺
TVTranscript
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 Yihau Bimang Yuen Keng. This is the beginning of the excavation.
07:09This is Yihau Bimang Yuen Kheng. This is Yihau Bimang Yuen Kheng. This is the beginning of the
07:23Beijing.
07:48What was the thing which most surprised you?
07:53One is Sōliang.
07:54The second is his writing style.
07:58His quality of art.
08:00It was very震撃.
08:04I found a young man who found a young man who found a young man who found a young man.
08:10I was very pleased.
08:15Yuan's first week here turned into decades.
08:19And today I'm coming to meet the person who's continuing his pioneering work.
08:24His former assistant, Janice Zhuzhin Li.
08:27Hi Janice.
08:28Yeah, hi.
08:29How are you?
08:29I'm fine, how are you?
08:30Very good.
08:31They believe the emperor's terracotta army is an exact copy of the real thing.
08:36So this was going to be his army in the afterlife?
08:40Yeah, in the afterlife.
08:40Wow.
08:41To protect him.
08:43What I really noticed looking around is I 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.
08:58They do.
08:59You see the moustache, it's different.
09:01And also the eye shape.
09:04This stunning realism amplifies the great mystery surrounding these figures.
09:09Where do they come from?
09:11Because they're nothing like any figure made in China before them.
09:19Let me show you the terracotta figures made in China before the Qing terracotta warrior.
09:24So the figurines is really small.
09:27Okay.
09:28In small size, about 10 inches.
09:30Oh, so tiny.
09:31So that's very tiny.
09:32And suddenly they start producing this.
09:34Yeah, and this is about two meters.
09:36So something has changed.
09:37Yes.
09:37These warriors are far more sophisticated, much 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.
09:49So 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, a competing cluster of
10:37mini-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 classic Greek art.
10:56Absolute high-water mark of artistic expression.
10:59Beautiful, metre and a half tall, intricately painted, human in its look.
11:04But 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. There's a revolution.
11:18Suddenly, in 220 BC, and just after that, you get the Terracotta Warriors, light-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. You 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. It'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.
12:49It's amazing to have those texts as well. I mean, 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. You know, what is now one of the most important sites on earth doesn't
13:09even 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.
13:58I'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.
14:10Or 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.
14:29How it could 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.
15:15We're building it up.
15:18We're building it up.
15:19We're building it up.
15:21We're building it up.
15:21Apparently, the bodies are not sculpted, but made with the kind of coil pot technique most of us have tried
15:27at school.
15:32Looking at the ranks of terracotta soldiers, it'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, I 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 is 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.
16:27And it seems anyone with a bit of practice could produce heads pretty quickly, using this moulding technique.
16:41Oh, look at that! Look at that!
16:44That's fantastic!
16:45Hold on his 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.
16:56Brilliant!
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 making the entire terracotta army.
17:33So the mass production of thousands of warriors could have been based on a combination of skilled Chinese potters guided
17:40by 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 to find themselves here in the
18:16third century BC.
18:21In a totally alien culture, on the other side of the world.
18:26If 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 and he wanted to stamp his mark on it.
19:21Yet if he recruited westerners to help him create his mausoleum, bringing them here could have been one of the
19:27greatest 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 Shiji, 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.
20:42Lead archaeologist Zhang Weijing believes they have uncovered an ancient road.
20:49What is this?
20:51Peel this tarp back.
20:55At first sight, it looks narrow for an imperial highway.
21:00OK.
21:01So, you know, when I first came in here, I thought that they were excavating the length of the road.
21:07I mean, it's, you know, it looks about the size of a road.
21:09But what we're seeing from the tracks is that actually the road is going this way.
21:15Oh, yeah.
21:16Oh, yeah.
21:16Oh, yeah.
21:17You really get a sense of it here.
21:22Zhang believes this is the cross section of a vast multi-lane highway built to bring men and materials to
21:28the emperor's tomb.
21:29Towards the mausoleum.
21:32OK, so this was part of the, I guess, the construction process, you know.
21:38Wow, look at that.
21:40When you look at, you know, the size of that mound, there must have been a lot of material that
21:45was moved to build basically a mountain.
21:48These are the tracks of carts that have pressed down in the earth in the Qin Dynasty over 2,000
21:56years ago.
22:00The huge width of this highway shows the Chinese were masters of road engineering on a vast scale.
22:07Capable of building the national network described in the Shiji.
22:12Perhaps reaching beyond China itself.
22:19We need to find that hidden network.
22:23Which 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.
23:01The Chinese call them the acrobats.
23:10They were discovered in a small pit, very close to the Emperor's tomb.
23:15Where I've arranged to meet Dr. Lucas Nickel.
23:21Oh, Lucas, hi.
23:23Dan, nice seeing you.
23:25It's very good to be here. I've read your paper.
23:26Have a look at this one.
23:30Here we have a figure with a semi-naked body.
23:33He has just this little piece of cloth around his hip.
23:36And what we see is a building of a body.
23:39You see, if you look at the arms, we have musculature.
23:42We have an idea that I'm standing off the bone.
23:45Ligaments in his hand. Also, big muscles over the kneecap.
23:48If you remember, the terracotta warriors are basically standing that way.
23:52It's like a torso with arms and legs just stuck in.
23:55But there's no attempt to build a proper working human body.
24:01There are believed to be more than 50 of these acrobats.
24:05And the conservation team is still trying to piece them together
24:09from thousands of fragments.
24:12Unlike 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.
24:32They want to show an anatomically correct movement.
24:36In a quite acceptable, believable way, he puts one foot in front,
24:40the other one behind, and you see that the whole body,
24:43the legs, the knees, the hip, and the upper part of the body are moving along.
24:48Your first impression, that is classically Greek.
24:51Yes, absolutely no question about that.
24:53It's something we only find in Greece.
24:56Only the Greeks would do that.
24:58The people who made this had an understanding of how Greeks would make sculpture.
25:03That is extremely surprising.
25:04To show a human body in this kind of convincing, lifelike stance,
25:09that is extremely complicated.
25:11That is something we know in Greece it had taken centuries to learn this.
25:16But suddenly, at the end of the third century, we see in China, we get that.
25:19And that is very close to a Greek idea.
25:22So you're seriously suggesting that that statue might have been sculpted by a Greek sculptor
25:28who came all the way out here and made it for the emperor?
25:31Well, I imagine a Greek sculptor may have come here to train the locals.
25:37It's just, I mean, that's amazing.
25:43This feels like a huge breakthrough.
25:46Possible evidence of Western instructors working in China 2,200 years ago.
25:54Perhaps 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?
26:08How did they get here?
26:17At 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.
26:31Alexander the Great's empire reaches its high watermark around about the time of his death, 323 BC.
26:41Then, from 220 BC onwards, another young charismatic leader, Qin Shi Huangdi,
26:49creates the beginnings of modern China, unifying China.
26:53Now, did this first emperor of China take advantage of the narrow gap that now existed between the Greek world
27:02and his Chinese world
27:03to import ideas, techniques, materials, maybe even people?
27:10Suddenly, 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 next 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,
28:22belong 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,
28:38it would be unfitting to have those who bore no sons sent elsewhere.
28:43All were accordingly ordered to accompany the dead man,
28:47which resulted in the death of many women.
28:50If 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.
29:05From lead archaeologist, Mr Zhu.
29:09So you think these bones could possibly be the female consorts of the emperor,
29:14the concubines?
29:15These bones could be the same.
29:16This is possible, but it cannot be complete.
29:18Because the human body is unique as the dead man.
29:22It is similar to the Qin Shi Huang's way of the dead man.
29:23The same way of the dead man is defined as the dead man.
29:29The same way of the dead man represents the dead man between the dead man and the dead man.
29:30There are similar relations between the dead man.
29:32Many people say that this may be a ghost.
29:35I said that this is not the same.
29:38When you see this skull in the dead man,
29:40you think that these bones are in the brain.
29:50They also have poignant evidence of how she lived.
29:57These pearls are absolutely beautiful.
30:01They also have poignant evidence of how she lived.
30:09These 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 pass.
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.
32:23Oh, there we are at the very edge.
32:24Oh.
32:25And 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.
32:34The 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.
32:57And right away, there is something that Zhang hasn't seen before.
33:12A diagonal line on the landscape. It just doesn't seem to belong.
33:17Oh.
33:21I mean...
33:22I think this wall, this wall, should be the same with the east-style.
33:27So he's saying that if this one is man-made, then it's a game-changer.
33:34Really exciting.
33:38Have a good day.
33:39Can I do it?
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
33:55is nothing obviously modern like a sewer pipe or gas line.
34:10All right, let'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.
34:47Okay, and 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
35:02over six feet below the surface of the rest of these farms
35:07with no real explanation for its existence.
35:10There's no reason to have this huge trench here.
35:12There's no river here. There's nothing else.
35:14But if I'm right, then what I'm standing on right here
35:17could be one of the roads, of the network of roads
35:20built 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.
35:33We need something heading northwest.
35:41So, it's back to the aerial data.
35:52There's this faint signature of some kind of anomaly
35:55that'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
36:08that we just ground-trueced.
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.
36:29But there is a natural line it could have followed 2,000 years ago,
36:34along 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
36:47was this town called Lintau.
36:52The Shiji describes it as a garrison town.
36:55You know, it was 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,
37:09the wall's starting point and base of construction was at Lintau.
37:15It must have been a huge project.
37:18There's builders there, there's soldiers there.
37:22I mean, communication was key,
37:23and the roads that this person built, the first emperor,
37:27they were the key to that communication.
37:31Okay.
37:34Albert, how's it going?
37:36Hey, Dan.
37:37What have you found?
37:38I'm actually seeing,
37:39around the first emperor's tomb site,
37:42a road going west.
37:43Really?
37:44Really?
37:45Farthest it would go that we would know of so far
37:48would be this town of Lintau,
37:51the most western extent of the entire empire.
37:54That is very interesting information.
37:56Congratulations.
37:59If there was a road going from here as far as Lintau,
38:04can we find any historic reference
38:06connecting 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,
38:20but it was just shown to me the other day,
38:22and it's absolutely fascinating.
38:23It says,
38:23in the 26th year of the emperor,
38:25which is about 220 BC in Lintau,
38:28it said,
38:29Da Ren appeared.
38:31That's tall men.
38:33I love that description,
38:34tall men.
38:34They didn't have a word for statue.
38:36But,
38:37this is the best bit,
38:38all dressed in foreign robes.
38:41How interesting.
38:42Statues.
38:43That is the,
38:44what would become known as the silk route through there,
38:46so Lintau is perfectly placed.
38:47That 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
38:57to adorn his palace in Xi'an.
39:00It says,
39:01weapons from all over the empire are confiscated
39:03and melted down to be used in casting bells,
39:06bell stands,
39:06and 12 men made of metal.
39:08He's melting down all of those weapons
39:10and creating these statues
39:12as a symbol of his power over that empire.
39:15It's straight out of the playbook
39:16of the great conquerors of the Mediterranean,
39:19the Alexanders,
39:20the Ramesses,
39:21erecting massive statues
39:22to reinforce their own might,
39:24dominance,
39:25and legitimacy.
39:27Sadly, there are no traces left
39:29of the emperor's original bronze statues.
39:33But the story suggests
39:35he wanted the kudos
39:36of exotic foreign culture.
39:39And we may have discovered
39:41the origins of the sculptors
39:42who brought that culture to China.
39:45Thanks to a new discovery
39:46made by Dr Lucas Nickel.
39:51Have you ever seen something comparable?
39:54That looks very familiar.
39:57Or that one?
39:58That is very similar
39:59to the stuff we're seeing here
40:00at the Terracotta Army.
40:01Absolutely.
40:02I mean,
40:02this idea of realism
40:04and this idea to try
40:05to make a believable figure,
40:08that is totally comparable
40:09to what we see in China.
40:11That is a sculpture
40:12made in Khalchayan,
40:13in Afghanistan,
40:14where the Greeks established
40:16a lot of cities at this time.
40:17What we have here,
40:19that's a local ruler
40:20who apparently employed
40:22Greek craftsmen
40:23to make sculptures
40:24for his palace.
40:26These Greek craftsmen
40:27had the idea,
40:28well,
40:28why not even
40:29moving further east
40:30to the Chinese,
40:32of which we know
40:33that they are extremely rich?
40:35And that's going on
40:36in what is now Afghanistan.
40:38I mean,
40:38that's not very,
40:39very far from here, really.
40:41It's about the same distance
40:42to Athens
40:43as it is
40:44to the Chinese capital,
40:45for the Xi'an.
40:48Albert believes
40:49he's found the start
40:50of the Emperor's Road Network.
40:52And his hunch
40:53that that network
40:54could go much further west
40:56seems to be correct.
41:00Hey, Albert,
41:00how are you doing?
41:02Just seeing some good stuff as well.
41:03Oh, yeah.
41:04Hmm.
41:04Some fun stuff.
41:06Lucas just showed me
41:07some extraordinary images
41:09of art from Afghanistan
41:11on the borders
41:13of modern-day China
41:15and
41:16on what would become
41:17known as the silver.
41:19Looks quite familiar.
41:20Looks quite familiar.
41:22I mean,
41:22we're not talking about
41:23people coming from Athens.
41:24We're talking from Afghanistan,
41:25Tajikistan here.
41:26Basically,
41:26what we're saying
41:26is that
41:27very similar art styles,
41:29very similar time frame,
41:31and a bunch of connection points
41:32between these two.
41:33You did.
41:34Bang.
41:34Cobbers.
41:35East and West.
41:36Cultural exchange.
41:39We know the Emperor
41:40has Western-style statues
41:42created for his capital.
41:44We think
41:45there were itinerant
41:46Greek sculptors
41:47moving east
41:48to a city
41:49in what is now Afghanistan.
41:50And it seems
41:51there was probably
41:53a road linking Xi'an
41:54at least as far as Lintau.
41:56So a picture is emerging
41:58of a cultural highway
42:00between west and east.
42:02a prototype silk road.
42:08But the picture
42:09is not yet complete.
42:12Hello.
42:14Oh, hey, Alice.
42:15How you doing?
42:15We've got archaeology.
42:16We've got a culture of art,
42:19techniques of art.
42:20What we don't have
42:21is only people.
42:22You're the people person.
42:24It would be nice
42:24to see some evidence.
42:25I'm headed now
42:26to the
42:27Shang-Chi Institute
42:28of Archaeology.
42:29I'm hoping
42:30that I'm going to see
42:31some of the
42:33mausoleum workers' bones.
42:35I've talked
42:36to the archaeologists
42:36and they've hinted
42:38that there might be
42:39some kind of
42:40western connection there.
42:41So I'm really intrigued
42:42to have a look at them.
42:44The remains Alice
42:45is going to see
42:46were found
42:47several kilometres
42:47east of the
42:48terracotta army.
42:50They're believed
42:51to be tomb workers
42:52because they were
42:53buried in a mass grave
42:54of the same period,
42:55close to the remains
42:56of a pottery kiln.
43:03There's one skull
43:04in particular
43:05that I'm really
43:06intrigued to have
43:07a look at
43:07because it might
43:09offer some kind
43:10of connection
43:10to people
43:11outside of China.
43:15The Shang-Chi Institute
43:17is the central
43:17depository
43:18for all human remains
43:19found in the
43:20emperor's mausoleum.
43:23Because of their
43:24sacred and sensitive
43:25nature,
43:26those remains
43:27are closely guarded
43:28and access rarely
43:29granted.
43:33According to the
43:34Shi-ji,
43:34the emperor
43:35brought 700,000 men
43:37from all across
43:38China and possibly
43:39beyond to build
43:41his mausoleum.
43:42More than 20 times
43:44the number who built
43:45Egypt's Great Pyramid
43:47at Giza.
43:50And Professor Sun
43:51has evidence
43:52that the human cost
43:54was correspondingly
43:56high.
44:02of these individuals
44:04who were
44:04not willing
44:05workers.
44:06Would you
44:06consider them
44:07to be slaves?
44:08No.
44:09They were
44:10criminals.
44:11Criminals?
44:12Yeah.
44:13Criminals who
44:13were then conscripted
44:14to come and
44:15work on the tomb?
44:16Yeah.
44:17And presumably
44:17executed.
44:19I mean,
44:19these are young men.
44:21We presume
44:22this is not
44:23a natural death
44:23that they suffered.
44:24This is not
44:28that they suffered.
44:29among the mass victims
44:30of the emperor's
44:31brutal forced labour,
44:33there is one individual,
44:35according to Professor Sun,
44:37whose features
44:38don't look Chinese.
44:43It is,
44:44it's quite intriguing
44:45to look at him.
44:46This doesn't really look
44:48like a typically
44:49East Asian skull.
44:53I'm looking for
44:54features which
44:55might be typical
44:57of an East Asian skull
44:58and they're not there.
44:59Instead,
45:00this skull
45:01has got
45:01quite prominent
45:02nasal bones
45:03and its cheekbones
45:05are different as well.
45:06They're not
45:07the flattened
45:08malars
45:09or cheekbones
45:10that I would
45:10expect to see.
45:11I think it would
45:12be fantastic
45:13if we could do
45:13a bit of further
45:14analysis on this skull.
45:17There's a tantalising
45:19possibility
45:19we could be looking
45:21at an outsider,
45:22perhaps from beyond
45:23China's western border.
45:26A simple DNA test
45:27would confirm it,
45:28but they won't let
45:29Alice take a sample.
45:31Precise cranial measurements
45:33are the only other option.
45:35What would be great
45:36is if we could
45:37reconstruct
45:38the face
45:39of this young man
45:40so that we can see
45:41what he would have
45:42looked like in life.
45:48Reconstructing the face
45:49involves weeks
45:50of digital recreation,
45:51building muscle groups
45:52onto a computer model
45:53of the skull.
45:59But the real scientific data
46:01lies in the skull itself.
46:05Alice is using
46:07a global database
46:08of skull types,
46:09which may help
46:10pin down the origins
46:11of our tomb worker.
46:17Albert logs on
46:18to witness
46:18the long-awaited reveal
46:20and Alice and I
46:21get ready to greet
46:22our worker
46:23face-to-face.
46:26Here we go.
46:31Here it is.
46:33Moment of truth.
46:34I can't wait to see
46:35what this reconstruction
46:35looks like.
46:39There we go.
46:40There we go.
46:40Oh, interesting.
46:43Oh, wow.
46:43Oh.
46:46Okay.
46:47There's styrene
46:47sticking to him.
46:49Wow.
46:51Well, he does look
46:52incredibly realistic.
46:54What do you think, Albert?
46:56Camera's coming in
46:57for extreme close-up.
46:58The thing that sends
47:00little tingles up my spine
47:02is that this may be
47:03the closest we get
47:05to actually being
47:07in that moment,
47:08in that time.
47:09You know, this is one
47:09of the guys who actually
47:10built that entire tomb.
47:12It's quite incredible,
47:14isn't it?
47:14So look at this reconstruction.
47:15Having seen the skull
47:17in China,
47:18this is our best guess
47:21of what this man
47:22actually looked like
47:23in life.
47:24My analysis of the skull
47:25was quite interesting.
47:26I took lots of measurements
47:28of the skull
47:28when we were out in China
47:29and came out as
47:31very definitely
47:33not Western.
47:34He's not from the West.
47:35I see.
47:37It doesn't help us,
47:38does it?
47:39It doesn't help us.
47:40It's not the smoking gun.
47:41Tantalizing.
47:42It would have been
47:42very nice
47:43to find
47:45a ginger bloke
47:47in the tomb
47:49of the first emperor.
47:50But we would have been
47:51incredibly lucky,
47:53I suppose,
47:53to find the one
47:54skeleton amongst
47:56the tens of thousands
47:57that must be
47:58lying around there.
48:00The data puts our man
48:01outside mainland China
48:03but in a vast area.
48:06From Afghanistan
48:07to the Pacific Islands.
48:10Plausible evidence
48:11that there may have been
48:12outsiders working
48:13on the tomb.
48:14And it supports
48:15the controversial theory
48:16that the first emperor
48:17could have imported
48:19foreigners
48:19and foreign ideas.
48:28There are always
48:29new discoveries
48:30coming out of this
48:31vast mausoleum site.
48:37And one of them
48:38has thrown us
48:39a new line of inquiry.
48:42not in terracotta
48:44but in bronze.
48:47And not of human figures
48:48but animals.
48:5146 bronze waterbirds
48:53were found in a pit
48:54north of the emperor's tomb.
48:56All beautifully arranged
48:58as though feeding
48:59at an ornamental pond.
49:07It's a type of bronze sculpture
49:09that appeared in China
49:11almost overnight.
49:14Nothing like it
49:15had been seen here
49:16before the first emperor.
49:27It's such a beautiful
49:29piece of sculpture
49:31and it's not just
49:32a beautiful object.
49:34It might be
49:35the techniques
49:36for making it
49:37came from the west.
49:39The technique
49:40is called
49:41direct lost wax
49:43and its origins
49:44can be traced back
49:44to the Mediterranean
49:455,000 years ago.
49:54Before I can talk
49:55to the researcher
49:56who has the key
49:57piece of evidence
49:57I'm told I need to see
49:59the basic process
50:00to understand
50:02quite how complex it is.
50:06As the name suggests
50:08they start with a design
50:09carved out of wax.
50:12Then go through
50:13a series of processes
50:15to replace that wax
50:16with bronze.
50:18So this is a sort of
50:19mould that gets created
50:20around the wax
50:21and it's this mould
50:23that will give the shape
50:24to the bronze.
50:26So clever.
50:28Lost wax took centuries
50:30to perfect in the west
50:32and watching it today
50:33I 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?
50:56Oh.
50:57Look at that.
50:58The bronze has taken
51:00the form of that wax
51:02absolutely perfectly.
51:05So they're going to
51:06cut these off
51:07stick a head on it
51:08and you've got a wonderful
51:10bird
51:11fit for an emperor.
51:14Hot.
51:16It's clear this process
51:18is too complex
51:18to stumble on
51:20by accident
51:21but did someone
51:22bring a version of it
51:24to China
51:242,000 years ago?
51:29according to Dr.
51:30Shao and Ding
51:31there is telltale
51:33evidence
51:33of the direct
51:34lost wax technique
51:37it's hidden inside
51:39this swan's
51:39graceful
51:40delicate neck
51:42a reinforced
51:44structural
51:44core
51:45of clay
51:49This is evidence
51:50core like that
51:51isn't it?
51:51Yeah.
51:52So if you want to create
51:53these
51:53very natural shapes
51:55you need
51:56like a reinforcing rod
51:57running through it
51:58to give it that shape?
51:58Yeah
51:59If you don't have
52:01this core rod
52:02it will
52:03just snap off
52:04Yeah
52:04Yeah
52:05Shao only discovered
52:07the core rod
52:07when he x-rayed
52:09the swan
52:09Oh
52:10there you go
52:11is that the rod?
52:12Yes
52:13Yes
52:13It's evidence
52:14of the rod
52:14That's very clear
52:15Yes
52:16That's the reinforcing rod
52:17on an x-ray
52:18Such kind of evidence
52:19we haven't seen
52:20in Chinese bronze
52:21before
52:22We see similar
52:23things in Egypt
52:24bronze sculpture
52:26In Egypt?
52:27Yes
52:27In Egypt bronze kite
52:28Wow
52:29I can show you
52:30No
52:31Look at that
52:32Yes
52:32That's uncanny
52:34It's got the reinforcing rod
52:35Yes
52:35Yes
52:36This one is the same
52:37techniques
52:38with the neck
52:40So you're saying
52:41this technique
52:42was normal
52:43in the Mediterranean
52:43and never been seen
52:45before in China
52:46Yeah
52:46We haven't seen it
52:47But in this
52:49group of boards
52:50the technique
52:51is perfect
52:52So
52:53I think
52:54it's influenced
52:55our board
52:56directly from the way
52:57of the West
52:57Wow
52:58That's pretty good evidence
53:07We now have strong evidence
53:09of Western metal workers
53:10in China
53:11in the 3rd century BC
53:18Added to the evidence
53:19of Greek trained sculptors
53:21it suggests
53:22there was a community
53:23of Westerners
53:23brought here
53:24by the emperor
53:25by the emperor
53:26But unlike terracotta
53:28when it came to bronze
53:30the Chinese took imported technology
53:33to a whole new level
53:37In the heart of the mausoleum
53:39is a gallery showcasing
53:41the genius
53:41of the emperor's bronze workers
53:49Objects like these
53:51Two half-sized replicas
53:54of imperial carriages
53:55made entirely of bronze
54:00I don't think
54:01I've ever seen anything
54:02so beautiful
54:04of this antiquity
54:06Over 2,000 years
54:08this remained underground
54:11It's so lifelike
54:13you can feel the energy
54:14in those horses
54:15I love the fact
54:17that it's just waiting
54:18a key in the ignition
54:19ready for the emperor
54:20to rise
54:21in the afterlife
54:23take his position
54:24and be taken off
54:25to visit his new
54:26underground kingdom
54:37We're getting a clearer
54:38and clearer picture
54:39of how the emperor
54:40used Western techniques
54:41to enhance
54:42his newly unified empire
54:46And creating
54:48the physical infrastructure
54:49to connect
54:50to communities
54:51far beyond his borders
54:56But we haven't
54:57yet found evidence
54:59of Western people
55:05However
55:06Alice has heard
55:07about a new study
55:08of human remains
55:09from around the time
55:10of the first emperor
55:12And she's meeting
55:13its author
55:14geneticist
55:15Josh Jouji
55:16Hello Alice
55:17Hello Josh
55:18Nice to meet you
55:19Really nice to meet you
55:20Have a seat
55:21Thank you
55:23They have the European
55:26specific mitochondrial DNA
55:29The U
55:30Oh yeah
55:31The mitochondrial U
55:33And most of them
55:35are U
55:36So U on my map here
55:39is something
55:39which is much more common
55:40much more frequent
55:41in Europe
55:42Definitely European looking
55:44So this is really intriguing
55:46This must be evidence
55:48at some point then
55:49of people with
55:50European mitochondrial DNA
55:52coming into Asia
55:54It looks like
55:55some Western
55:58Europeans
55:59travel there
56:00and settle down
56:02and die there
56:03It does make you wonder
56:05if this is evidence
56:06of people moving along
56:07a kind of
56:08proto-silk route
56:09Yes
56:11This DNA evidence
56:13was found here
56:14en route to China
56:15and within its current border
56:21It's news Alice
56:22needs to share
56:26So I just met up with Josh
56:28who is the first author
56:29on this fantastic paper
56:31from Xinjiang province
56:34Right
56:34Where the soap road is
56:36Yes
56:36Okay
56:37So right over in the west of China
56:39and there they found
56:40a real mixture
56:42European mitochondrial DNA lineages
56:45mixed up with
56:46East Asian lineages
56:48So this goes back
56:49kind of to the time
56:49of the whole
56:50Alexander the Great
56:52conquests
56:53Yeah, yeah, yeah
56:54And a real mixture of people
56:57I would think
56:58that there's been
56:59an inspiration
57:00across the two worlds
57:01that we haven't
57:02fully accounted for
57:12We began our journey
57:14with a simple question
57:15What could explain
57:17the terracotta army?
57:22There was one explanation
57:24that was earth-shattering
57:26in its implications
57:27a direct link
57:29with the western world
57:30centuries before
57:32it was thought possible
57:36This is the western end
57:39of that connection
57:40The British Museum's collection
57:42of classical Greek sculpture
57:49Is it possible that people
57:51that learned the skills
57:53that created these masterpieces
57:55helped to forge the legacy
57:58of the first emperor of China?
58:00The experts certainly think so
58:02There's a possibility
58:03to really have some
58:04other cultural stimulation
58:06This understanding of sculpture
58:08was absolutely extraordinary
58:10I believe Greek sculpture makers
58:13moved all the way
58:14to the Chinese capital
58:15and sold their trade
58:16to the first emperor
58:17And not just in terracotta
58:20I think it's influenced
58:22or borrowed directly
58:23from the west
58:25We have evidence
58:26of an ancient road network
58:28that could have brought
58:29westerners to China
58:30and DNA evidence
58:32of Europeans living
58:33on China's doorstep
58:36Archaeological evidence
58:37showed
58:38they really have
58:38communications
58:39between the east and the west
58:40I think this story
58:42rewrites the history
58:43of the birth of China
58:45Today, one of the most
58:46powerful nations on earth
58:47And it totally revolutionises
58:49our understanding
58:50of relations
58:51between east and west
58:522,000 years ago
58:53But perhaps most importantly
58:55of all
58:56it provides vital context
58:58that deepens
59:00and enriches
59:01our relationships
59:01in the present day
59:11This time tomorrow night
59:13Ireland's treasures
59:14uncovered
59:15including the iconic
59:16Tara Broach
59:17That's here at 10
59:18Next tonight
59:19an experiment
59:20tracks the spread
59:21of a viral infection
59:23across the UK
59:24Contagion
59:25The BBC4 Pandemic
59:27coming up
Comments