The Secret Tomb of China's 1st Emperor: Will We Ever See Inside?
Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience Senior Writer | August 17, 2012 07:29am ET
Buried deep under a hill in central China, surrounded by an underground moat of poisonous mercury, lies an entombed
emperor who's been undisturbed for more than two millennia.
The tomb holds the secrets of China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, who died on Sept. 10, 210 B.C., after conquering six
warring states to create the first unified nation of China.
The answers to a number of historical mysteries may lie buried inside that tomb, but whether modern people will ever see
inside this mausoleum depends not just on the Chinese government, but on science.
"The big hill, where the emperor is buried — nobody's been in there," said archaeologist Kristin Romey, curatorial consultant
for the Terracotta Warrior exhibition at New York City’s Discovery Times Square. "Partly it's out of respect for the elders,
but they also realize that nobody in the world right now has the technology to properly go in and excavate it."
The warring states
Qin Shi Huang (pronounced "chin shuh hwang") was born in 259 B.C., first son to the king of Qin, one of six independent
kingdoms inside modern China. These kingdoms had been warring for more than 200 years, but through a combination of
military strength, strategy and natural disasters, Qin Shi Huang conquered them all, proclaiming himself not just a king, but
also an emperor — the first of China.
Scholars still debate the details of how this occurred, and what unique tactics allowed the Qin emperor to achieve what no
one had managed before.
When he died, Qin Shi Huang was buried in the most opulent tomb complex ever constructed in China, a sprawling, city-size
collection of underground caverns containing everything the emperor would need for the afterlife. The ancient Chinese, along
with many cultures including ancient Egyptians, believed that items and even people buried with a person could be taken
with him to the afterlife.
But instead of burying his armies, administrators and servants with him, the Qin emperor came up with an alternative: clay
reproductions.
Shocking discovery
In 1974, a group of farmers digging wells near Xi'an, China stumbled upon one of the most shocking archaeological
discoveries of all time. The life-size terracotta solider they dug out of the ground turned out to be just one of an army of
thousands, each utterly unique, with individual clothing, hair and facial features.
For almost four decades, archaeologists have been excavating the site. So far, they've uncovered about 2,000 clay soldiers,
but experts estimate there are more than 8,000 in total.
"They're going to be digging there for centuries," Romey predicted.
Still, scientists have yet to touch the central tomb, which holds a palace containing the body of Qin Shi Huang.
"It's really smart what the Chinese government is doing," Romey told LiveScience. "When we went into [Egyptian King]
Tut's tomb, think about all the information we lost just based on the excavation techniques of the 1930s. There's so much
additional that we could have learned, but the techniques back then weren’t what we have now."
"Even though we may think we have great archaeological excavation techniques right now," she said, "who knows, a century
down the road if we open this tomb, what they're going to say?"
To open the tomb?
The decision whether to explore the tomb anytime soon, or ever, is up to the government of China. That decision will likely
be influenced by the pace of technological progress.
"In archaeological conservation, every year you have major new developments," Romey said. "When we began excavating
[the soldiers] in the '70s, the minute they were exposed to air and sunlight, the pigment just flaked off. Now they’ve figured
out a new technique where they can actually preserve the paint as they excavate."
Perhaps, if science advances enough, that excavation wouldn't cause serious damage to the burial site, and the tomb will
finally be opened.
"I wouldn’t be surprised if you had some sort of robotic visual survey going in there at some point," Romey said.
And despite their desire to protect the treasures of antiquity, archaeologists are itching with curiosity to find out what's inside
Qin Shi Huang's central tomb.
Rivers of mercury
Ancient writings say the emperor created an entire underground kingdom and palace, complete with a ceiling mimicking the
night sky, set with pearls as stars. Pits full of terracotta ladies have never been discovered, though experts predict they exist
somewhere in the complex.
And Qin Shi Huang's tomb is also thought to be encircled with rivers of liquid mercury, which the ancient Chinese believed
could bestow immortality.
"It's kind of ironic," Romey said. "This is probably how he died, by ingesting mercury. He was taking all these mercury pills
because he wanted to live forever and it killed him by the age of 39."
That moat of mercury also presents another reason why archaeologists are loath to explore the tomb just yet — doing so
would likely be very dangerous, according to soil samples around the tomb, which indicate extremely high levels of mercury
contamination.
In the end, scientists and historians must always weigh their desire to know more with the damage such inquiry would cause.
"Archaeology, ultimately, is a destructive science," Romey said. "You have to destroy stuff in order to learn about it."
Gizmodo:
JESUS DIAZ on GIZMODO ARCHEOLOGY 12/28/12 7:26pm
Archaeologists Think Hidden Imperial Tomb May Be Too Deadly to Explore
After discovering a secret palace hidden in China's first emperor massive burial complex, Chinese technicians are
nervous. Not because Qin Shi Huang's tomb is the most important archeological discovery since Tutankhamun,
but because they believe his burial place is full of deadly traps that will kill any trespassers. Not to talk about
deadly quantities of mercury.
The secret courtyard-style palace tomb is a mind-numbing discovery. Situated in the heart of the Emperor's 22square-mile (56-square-kilometer) mortuary compound guarded by more than 6,000 (and counting) full-size
statues of warriors, musicians and acrobats, the buried palace is 2,263 by 820 feet (690 by 250 meters). It
includes 18 courtyard houses overlooked by one main building, where the emperor is supposed to be. The palace—
which has already been partially mapped in 3D using volumetric scanners—occupied a space of 6,003,490 cubic
feet (170,000 cubic meters). That's one fourth the size of the Forbidden City in Beijing—for just one tomb.
Experts believe that the 249-foot-high (76-meter) structure covered with soil and kept dry thanks to a complex
draining system, hides the body of the emperor and his courtiers. Nobody knows what's the state of their bodies,
but one of the leading archeologists believes that they are most likely destroyed by now.
What probably are intact are the countless treasures that—according to the ancient scrolls that describe the
emperor's long lost burial site—fill the interior of the tomb. And perhaps the deadly traps guarding them too.
Deadly traps?
Talking to Spanish newspaper El Pais, the archeologists working at the excavation said that "it's like having a
present all wrapped at home, knowing that inside is what you always wanted, and not being able to open it." But,
at the same time, nobody wants to be the first to get inside because of the mausoleum's dangerous traps—they're
detailed in the same texts that recount its abundant riches.
It's not clear if the traps are really there, even while many texts describe them. There are no reports of traps in any
tombs in any ancient culture. According to Emily Teeter—University of Chicago's Oriental Institute's curator of
Egyptian and Nubian antiquities—traps are a legend as much as curses:
I am really sorry to report that if curses are out, then there is really nothing devious. Hollywood has turned
standard architectural features like sliding portcullis blocks, shafts, and sand filled chambers into objects of
horror. Sorry that the Egyptians were not more evil.
But let's assume that the Chinese were more evil awesome than the Egyptians or Central American cultures, and
that they really installed booby traps that triggered deadly crossbows in the emperor's tomb. Even if the old
Chinese texts are correct, they might now still work after two thousand years. Perhaps the mechanisms are so
rusty that the bolts won't fire. Maybe the wood and the cords used the in the traps have long since been destroyed
by bacteria.
Chinese historian Guo Zhikun argues the contrary. He is one of the main experts on Qinshihuang's burial site, and
says that it's very possible that the traps are still active. He claims that the use of chrome in the figures may
indicate that the traps received a similar protective treatment. He is sure that "the artisans who built the traps
installed crossbows that will fire if any thief tries to get inside."
Even if the traps don't work, there is still the matter of the high, deadly concentration of mercury inside the tomb.
On-site measurements indicate dangerous levels, which may come from another feature described in the srolls:
Imperial engineers created large rivers of quicksilver inside the tomb. So much that the level of mercury inside
could be deadly for any unprotected adventurers.
The Chinese government hasn't decided what to do with the hidden complex yet. The authorities will wait for
some time because they believe that, with the current technology, you can't get inside the tomb without destroying
some of its contents.
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