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posted by cmn32480 on Monday October 24 2016, @02:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the still-as-stone dept.

Ancient Greeks May Have Influenced the Creation of China's Terracotta Army

Archaeologists have suggested that ancient Greeks may have been in contact with China nearly 1,500 years before the arrival of Marco Polo, and that Greek sculptors influenced the creation of the Terracotta Army:

China and the West were in contact more than 1,500 years before European explorer Marco Polo arrived in China, new findings suggest. Archaeologists say inspiration for the Terracotta Warriors, found at the Tomb of the First Emperor near today's Xian, may have come from Ancient Greece. They also say ancient Greek artisans could have been training locals there in the Third Century BC.

Polo's 13th Century journey to China was the first to be well-documented. However, Chinese historians recorded much earlier visits by people thought by some to have been emissaries from the Roman Empire during the Second and Third Centuries AD. "We now have evidence that close contact existed between the First Emperor's China and the West before the formal opening of the Silk Road. This is far earlier than we formerly thought," said Senior Archaeologist Li Xiuzhen, from the Emperor Qin Shi Huang's Mausoleum Site Museum.

[...] Farmers first discovered the 8,000 terracotta figures buried less than a mile from the tomb of China's first emperor Qin Shi Huang in 1974. However there was no tradition of building life-sized human statues in China before the tomb was created. Earlier statues were simple figurines about 20cm (7.9ins) in height. To explain how such an enormous change in skill and style could have happened, Dr Xiuzhen believes that influences must have come from outside China. "We now think the Terracotta Army, the Acrobats and the bronze sculptures found on site have been inspired by ancient Greek sculptures and art," she said.

Also at National Geographic.

Did Ancient Greeks Help Build China's Terracotta Army?

Greek sculptors may have helped carve the famous terracotta warriors that have for more than 2,000 years watched over the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor.

Historians and archeologists excavating the tomb surmise that the statues, which were unusual for the time period, were influenced by Greek sculpture, suggesting that East and West met much earlier than previously thought.

"We now think the Terracotta Army, the acrobats and the bronze sculptures found on site, have been inspired by ancient Greek sculptures and art," Li Xiuzhen, a senior archaeologist at the site, told the Guardian.

Not the sort of thing that senior scientists on the Chinese mainland usually suggest.


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @06:54PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @06:54PM (#418674)

    Far more likely that if there was influence, it was indirect through artifacts moving along trade routes, which perhaps inspired Chinese sculptors to try something different

    That ignores several other details. If they were inspired to try out new things, one would expect there to be a couple of statues here and there. It's not like the first project would be creating the thousands of statues from scratch on a major project like this.

    For example, China is currently planning on sending people to the moon (last I heard). They didn't just wake up one day and try a moonshot, they are doing progressive improvements by creating things like space stations.

    It's entirely possible that some inspired (army of) artists decided to try their hand at life-sized statues, and went all-out creating thousands of them. However, I would have expected a more progressive build-up (finding individual statues here and there... finding less detailed or broken statues as they refine the art... years spend refining the craft and figuring out how to get it to scale... etc).

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