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The great ruler, it's said, was sealed in a bronze model of his world, at the heart of the largest mausoleum on earth, surrounded by rivers and seas of flowing mercury. And so the legend remained for over 2000 years.
Jeffrey Riegel from the University of California wants to separate fact from fiction. He has come to China to examine the latest research on the first emperor, unlocking the truth behind one of the world's greatest legends.
What we knew from these early stories, from these legends was the tale of a person who seemed from those sources to be larger than life, almost, almost impossibly large, as a, as a real figure, as a historical figure. Even though we knew, that of course he had indeed accomplished the unification of the empire, how did he do it? How did it, how did it come about? How, how could such an enormous historical personage exist?
Here I am! Oh Heaven!
The reality of the emperor’s life has long been shrouded in mystery. For 2 millennia the only detailed information came from a single written history compiled 100 years after his death. The Shiji, the records of a grand historian, Sima Qian, the foundation of the legend.
It’s an entire world that Sima Qian has recreated for us, but for 2000 years all we had was this text.
Then in 1974, archeologists found the Terracotta Army. It stunned the world. And the greatest archeological find of the 20th century became the first real physical substance to the legend.
Its scale is unprecedented. Terracotta figures were known about from other burial sites, but never on this scale.
