Netflix viewers can’t get enough of watching the necropolis of China’s first emperor, although archaeologists have long worried about the dangers of opening his still-sealed tomb.
Rivers of toxic liquid mercury, constructed as a miniature map of the emperor’s realm, are just one of the many potential risks of opening this innermost sanctum of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s tomb.
Experts are also concerned about the open-air display of the tomb’s sealed clay “terracotta warriors” army, which has instantly peeled and evaporated paint from similar sculptures buried near the more than 2,200-year-old emperor’s tomb. of antiquity.
Researchers have even turned to an exotic X-ray-like scanning technique, ‘muon tomography’, which exploits cosmic rays from space to peer inside the sealed burial site.
But, naturally, there are also rumors of a curse on the tomb, and certainly the seven local villagers who unearthed the first of Qin Shi Huangdi’s nearly 8,000 buried clay warriors in 1974 paid a high price for their discovery.
Netflix viewers can’t get enough of watching the necropolis of China’s first emperor, even though archaeologists have long worried about the dangers of opening his still-sealed tomb.
Rivers of toxic liquid mercury, constructed as a miniature map of the emperor’s kingdom, are just one of the potential risks of opening the innermost section of Qin Shi Huangdi’s tomb. But many more have also worried scholars and excavators, including rumors of traps and even a curse.
‘Mysteries of the Terracotta Warriors’ garnered 6.8 million hours watched, rising this week to fourth place on the streamer’s ‘Most Viewed’ list since the one-hour, 17-minute documentary debuted on Netflix on June 12. .
The hit documentary, from British director James Tovell, explores the life, death and archaeological legacy of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang (259-210 BC), who managed to conquer and unify all of China in 221 BC.
Qin Shi Huang created an empire that lasted for about two millennia.
And his other achievements included beginning construction of the Great Wall of China, establishing a nationwide road network, and standardizing writing and units.
But the discovery of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s clay soldiers, sculpted to serve as his army in the afterlife, proved to be a minor success for the seven men who discovered the first known Qin terracotta warriors.
These villagers from a farming community near the city of Xi’an found the clay head of a warrior while digging a new well in the midst of a devastating drought in 1974.
A frenzy ensued from the moment this ceramic-looking clay head and the several bronze arrowheads unearthed with it were first made public.
Soon, the government seized the village’s farmland for its archaeological and historical value.
And over time, houses were demolished to make way for museum exhibition halls and tourist shops.
Three of these seven farmers died in tragic and terrible circumstances.
Then Wang Puzhi, 60, hanged himself with a rope in 1997 after facing insurmountable medical bills to treat his illnesses.
Two other farmers died in their early 50s, Yang Wenhai and Yang Yanxin, equally penniless and unable to pay for their own medical care.
Netflix’s new documentary ‘Mysteries of the Terracotta Warriors’ garnered 6.8 million hours watched, rising to fourth place on the streamer’s ‘most viewed’ list this week.
The rest lived earning less than a few dollars a day for years signing books for tourists in the Official souvenir shops of the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor.
One of the surviving farmers, Yang Zhifa, was so disgusted with his treatment that he did not go to see the restored army of sculptures until 1995, he said. Chinese Newspaper.
While the discovery of the tomb remains one of the largest archaeological finds of the 20th century, efforts to delve deeper into the tomb have run into worrying obstacles.
Soil testing around the site has revealed traces of mercury 100 times higher than normal, lending credence to the myth that Qin had artisanal rivers and lakes full of the element built for his tomb as part of a giant map of China.
“Every time we dig something up there will be a lot of risk assessment,” Ming Tak Ted HuiAssociate Professor of Classical Chinese and Medieval China at Oxford University told DailyMail.com in early June.
Above, 2,200-year-old terracotta army at the Xi’an Qin Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum
“But if we look at the trend, I can say that it seems that there are more possibilities for us to do that,” according to the researcher, who appears in the new Netflix documentary.
He added that while better technology is making it easier for researchers to excavate with caution, tombs in Xi’an that may include one of the emperor’s heirs, Prince Gao, may have the added challenge of traps.
The existence of these traps was exposed in the work of ancient historian Sima Qian, who wrote around 85 BC
According to Sima Qian (145-86 BC), official historian of the Han dynasty, the emperor’s necropolis complex contained “palaces and scenic towers for a hundred officials”, all carefully protected.
Qin’s own underground tomb “was filled with rare artifacts and wonderful treasures,” this Han historian wrote, and to safeguard those treasures, “craftsmen were ordered to make crossbows and arrows prepared to shoot anyone who entered the tomb.” .
Above (left) a representation of Qin Shi Huang, the ruthless first emperor of China, dated around 1850 AD. C., and (right) an exhibition of artefacts from the first Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang and terracotta warriors at the World Museum in Liverpool, Merseyside. in the United Kingdom
Associate Professor Ming Tak Ted Hui of the University of Oxford said he is confident that archaeologists will one day address the tomb’s most intimate secrets, something he is glad to see gaining greater interest thanks to the Netflix original.
“At a time when we seriously doubt the truth,” the “heroes” of this story, he says, are the people who have given their lives in the present to better understand the past.
“There are common interests or common mysteries that you will find in it,” he said.
‘It’s not about what culture you belong to (…) it’s not just a project that appeals to an audience from China. “It is drawing an audience from around the world to think about what humanity as a whole has achieved.”