The Terra Cotta Army: China's First Emperor and the Birth of a Nation PDF
Preview The Terra Cotta Army: China's First Emperor and the Birth of a Nation
CHAPTER THE TERRA COTTA ARMY i Also by John Man Gobi Atlas of the Year 1000 Alpha Beta The Gutenberg Revolution Genghis Khan Attila Kublai Khan THE TERRA COTTA ARMY China’s First Emperor and the Birth of a Nation JOHN MAN DA CAPO PRESS A MEMBER OF THE PERSEUS BOOKS GROUP Copyright © 2008 by John Man All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address Da Capo Press, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142. Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available from the Library of Congress. First edition published in Great Britain in 2007 by Bantam Press, an imprint of Transworld Publishers HC: ISBN 978-0-306-81840-0 PB: ISBN 978-0-306-81744-1 First Da Capo Press edition 2008 First Da Capo Press paperback edition 2009 Published by Da Capo Press A Member of the Perseus Books Group www.dacapopress.com Da Capo Press books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, extension 5000, or e-mail [email protected]. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 iv CONTENTS List of Maps vii A Note on Spelling ix Acknowledgements xi Picture Acknowledgements xiii Preface: An Army of the Past and Present xv PART I: ORIGINS 1 Discovery 3 2 The Grand Historian’s Hidden Agenda 16 3 Warring States, Conflicting Ideas 27 4 From Prince to King 42 5 The Making of China 61 6 A Ruthless Frenzy 72 PART II: BEYOND THE GRAVE 7 The World to Come 97 8 Digging the Tomb 115 9 Making the Eternal Army 127 10 Sudden Death 157 11 Consumed by Fire 179 PART III: THE EIGHTH WONDER 12 Six Thousand Characters in Search of a Role 205 13 New Marvels in Bronze and Stone 230 14 On Handling Treasures 247 15 To Be Revealed 257 Appendix 1: Dates and Dynasties 269 Appendix 2: Qin and the Terra Cotta Army in Context 271 Bibliography 275 Index 281 v “This page left intentionally blank.” CHAPTER MAPS The Qin Empire and the Wei Valley 30 The Tomb and its Surroundings 173 The Museum and the Army 202 vii “This page left intentionally blank.” CHAPTER A NOTE ON SPELLING Most Chinese words in this book are names, and all except for the occasional very well-established one are trans- literated using the modern system, pinyin (as opposed to the old one, known as Wade–Giles). In pinyin, most letters and diphthongs are roughly as in English, but some have their own pronunciation. These are the main ones: Consonants: c as in rats q as in church x is between s and sh z as in suds zh as in fudge Vowels: e as in the US pronunciation of nurse ie as in yeah ue as in a contracted form of ‘you were’ – y’were eng as in sung ei as in gay Commonly, pinyin omits the tones, which helps define the Chinese character. In Mandarin, there are four tones, indicated with accents on the vowel (the first, in diph- thongs): First (high, level) tone: a¯ e¯ ¯ı o¯ u¯ ix
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