11 - The Qin unification and Qin Empire: who were the terracotta warriors?

Summary

The rise of the Qin Empire (221–206 BC) was one of the greatest epics in human history. Like the Macedonians whose kingdom was dotted on the edge of a great civilization for centuries before they rose as a superpower, the Qin had a very long history that goes as far back as to the Western Zhou period. But this is a point that has only been recently testified by archaeological evidence. In June 1994, a pair of bronze hu-jar vessels appeared in the antique market in New York. The stylistic features of the vessels, clearly adherent to the standards of the Zhou mainstream bronze culture, suggest an indisputable early date close to the historical transition from the Western to the Eastern Zhou. Incidentally, both vessels are inscribed with six characters that read: “The Duke of Qin makes and casts this sacrificial hu-vessel.” The inscription squarely identifies the bronzes with a ruler of the state of Qin, who had reigned some five centuries before the rise of the ultra-famous First Emperor of Qin (r. 246–210 BC). By early 1996, more bronzes bearing the same line of inscription have surfaced in the markets outside China and six were purchased and subsequently published by the Shanghai Museum (Fig. 11.1). It was found that all of these bronzes had been looted from a single site in the southeastern corner of Gansu Province, and their discovery opened a new era in the study of Qin, the creator of China’s first empire. Coupled with the early discovery of the world heritage site, the “Terracotta Warriors,” and a series of other recent finds, we now have a completely new ground to reinterpret the early development of Qin and the rise of the Qin Empire.