The Ancients - Weapons of the Terracotta Army

Episode Date: April 14, 2022

When someone says the Terracotta Army, you’d be forgiven for instantly thinking of rows upon rows of life size warriors, arranged in three pits as part of the Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s huge mausoleum complex. But what’s arguably an even more fascinating aspect of these Warriors are the wide range of bronze weapons that they are buried with. From swords to spears to hooks to crossbow triggers, hundreds of these weapons survive in extraordinary condition.What can we learn from these weapons about the whole making of the Terracotta Army? Where were they made? Who oversaw their production? What do they reveal about the all-important logistics behind the creation of the Terracotta Army? To explain all, UCL honorary research fellow Dr Xiuzhen Li returned to the podcast.Listen to Xiuzhen’s previous episode, The Terracotta Army.For more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to Android or Apple store.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. And in today's podcast, where you might remember a couple of months back, we had a podcast episode all about the Terracotta Army, the Terracotta Warriors with Dr. Shu Jin Li. Now Shu Jin, when we did that podcast we also recorded another one, a follow-up episode which we're releasing today. And in this episode, rather than an overview of this iconic part of ancient

China from the late 3rd century BC and the Qin dynasty, rather than an overview we're now going to be delving into the detail of a specific part of these terracotta warriors. We're going to be focusing in on the bronze weapons that have been found that have survived really remarkably alongside the warriors in these various pits. So we're talking halberds, lances, spears, swords, hooks, crossbow bolts, ceremonial weapons and more. We're going to be talking about these various types of weapons and what their quality reveals about the logistics behind making the terracotta army, these terracotta warriors. what they're revealing for instance through inscriptions and so on about how they were made where they were made what workshops for instance

and who ordered their construction who ordered the building of certain weapons etc etc shujin she's done a lot of work on this topic she answers all of these questions and so much more this was a great episode i love these questions and so much more. This was a great episode. I love these episodes where we can delve into the detail of a specific aspect of a well-known topic from ancient history. So without further ado, to talk all about the weapons of the Terracotta Army, here's Shu Jin. Shu Jin, thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast. Thank you, my pleasure. Now, of course, last time we talked about an introduction to the Terracotta Army,

talking about the various styles of warriors, lacquers, and so much more, including possible inspirations. But now let's focus on something that I know you've done a lot of work around, and that's the weapons. We always think about the warriors, but we need to remember that these warriors, they also had a variety of weapons, didn't they, within this group of figurines? Yes. The Tarzan warriors were well-equipped, and also they equipped with functional weapons, functional lethal weapons, but mainly bronze weapons. We only find one or two pieces on weapons, but apart that, bronze weapons. We only excavated probably one-fifth of the pit target worries,

and it yielded about over 40,000 pieces of bronze weapons. But mainly arrowheads, because arrowheads are in the bundles. So we find over 40,000. And also the other crossbow triggers, lances, halberds, swords, and also ceremonial weapons. We're talking about su, you know, that kind of weapons, no blade. So that's kind of with long shaft and with a metal end on one top. So that's the one end.

So that's kind of ceremonial weapons to find in P3. that kind of ceremonial weapons are found in P3. As you mentioned there, do we find particular weapon types in different parts of the terracotta army? So as you mentioned, you find certain weapons in certain pits, but not elsewhere. Yes, you know, that's ceremonial weapons only find in P3. So P3, it was supposed to be the headquarter of P1 and P2. And also the ceremonial weapons were found there. And also I mentioned because some animal skeletons and deer horns and to show this headquarter. And these ceremonial weapons, we record it and we combine for the historical records. And this normally, there's no blade, so they're only kind of metal. And that's like they're holding the shaft and like

the soldiers for the ceremonial purpose, they just hold these weapons in headquarters. So elsewhere in the pits, how were these weapons arranged when you discovered them? Yeah, so in pit one and pit two, they will find different kinds of weapons. So in pit one, so that's surrounding the front, the back, and also two sides. So that's mainly crossbow. So we find the crossbow triggers and also bundle of arrows and also some loose arrows as well. And these are shows because they

are in the battle array. So because this is the crossbowmen in the four edges, you know. But in the center part, so there's mainly infantry. So the infantry, they have what we call the halberds or dagger axes or spears, because this is what we call long weapons with wooden handle, with a wooden shaft,

and also with a top blade, and that's a bronze blade. And this is normally for the infantry or some of the charioteer. On the chariot, they use called halberd. Halberds, they fix with a spear and the dagger axes. So in the front, in the top, they have a spear. And also in the relatively middle part, they have a halberd.

They have a dagger axis. So that can fix it together. So that can, you know, fighting with enemies, they also can hook them sometimes. So that's like with long wooden handles, quite long wooden handles. So that's kind of on the chariots. The sword mainly equipped for the general. So general have a sword.

And we find so far, I think, 17 swords in pick one. Some are broken and some are probably only part of the sword. So that's kind of for the high status of the military officials or general. Xu Jin, it's so interesting to hear about all of that and the fact the terracotta warriors and their weapons, it feels like such a brilliant archaeological source for anyone wanting to learn more about battle tactics, about battle formations of the Qin dynasty, of the Qin period. Yes, exactly, because there are three pieces of the Qin dynasty of the Qin period. Yes, exactly. Because these three pieces of

target worries and also with these functional lethal weapons and also the arrangements, you know, you can see that in the military array. So really, you know, give you the information about Qin time, about Qin dynasty. So they are military strategy. Yeah, and then how they arranged all these different target warriors, different warriors, different soldiers that time, and with different weapons. Well, let's talk about one of those particular weapons now, which we've already mentioned kind of, and this is the crossbow. Because by this time, the late 3rd century BC, if I'm not mistaken,

the crossbow, can we say this is kind of, it's now on the scene in Chinese warfare. And it should we say, already revolutionized Chinese warfare. This is a big weapon of war by the late 3rd century BC. Yeah, the invention of the crossbow really revolutionized the military strategies or military, the warfares. And, you know, the crossbow triggers, particularly the trigger part, you know, to fix in the wooden stock, you know, the crossbow. So they can release heavy arrows and the more targeted and also the long distance, so release arrow to the enemy. So that means really change the warfare.

And this crossbow becomes easy to manage because you just pull the trigger and release the arrows. So that's like quite easy. And these triggers, I'm guessing, so in the terracotta army, which you mentioned, because the rest of the crossbow design is organic material, all we have left is the triggers, but we found lots of them. Yeah, so we find nearly 300 so far. You know, we've not completely excavated all the target worries.

So that's partial excavation. So it's like over 300 crossbow triggers. So it's like over 300 crossbow triggers. And that means that Chin Teng State really trained many crossbowmen. And also the crossbowmen is a very important part of the military formation. And, you know, because also before the close combat, so that's the released arrows to the enemy, That's a very important part to win the battle. And how were these triggers, if you go to the manufacturing and production of them, how were they made?

Yeah, that's the long tradition of the bronze casting in China. So, you know, we have a long tradition since the Shang Dynasty, you know, from the Shang Dynasty, like 1500 BC, 1600 BC. So that's Shang Dynasty. And they start to have, you know, ritual bronzes. They made ritual bronzes, bronze containers, we call. And also they have, at the same time, they have bronze weapons as well. So that's like, we're talking about ritual and military, two very important parts for that time for the state. So that casting bronze, we have a long tradition of called mold casting because they have clay piece of mold for casting. So the crossbow triggers is also the same, you know, follow the bronze casting tradition. The crossbow triggers, actually, they have five parts.

They assemble together. You know, the five parts, you know, they have three functional parts and they have two pins, fasten them together. So that makes the crossbow triggers well manipulated, well managed. And also the creating for triggers is quite tricky or complicated because the five parts they cast in a separate piece mold and after cast because they need filing or polishing filing off all these extra metals on the surface because they can really assemble together and also can manipulate it smoothly, can manage it smoothly. So that's very important for the triggers. After casting, they need filing and also they need well assembled. One set for crossbow triggers, One set for crossbow triggers, they assemble together and they can work very well.

And they're marked so that each character is on the three, five parts. And to show this set of triggers work smoothly. So that's the production processes, means the casting, the filing, and also to show the workshop how they managed and then they made the crossbow. With the making of the crossbows, obviously we found so many of these triggers, as you mentioned with the terracotta warriors. But looking at these triggers, do they all look the same? Or can we see some variation in how they were made, how they were manufactured? some variation in how they were made, how they were manufactured? Yeah, we use these triggers trying to know the production process and also the organization for the weapons production. So yeah, I work on that, try to analyze all these triggers.

And from the surface also, we have some kind of also chemical analysis. But actually for these triggers, the production processes, we can see, so they have a different trigger because they have a different mode, probably mode or models. They have different groups we call assemblage, you know, or cluster, you know, for the surgical analysis. So they show us because the measurements, the dimensions are slightly different. So the slightly different means they use different modes or different models. Why they use different modes and models, that means probably they have different workshops or in different time periods. So can you therefore, from looking at the archaeology,

can you almost like subdivide all of these triggers saying, oh, that trigger looks like it's from that lot, but that trigger looks more like that lot. So you can kind of see which workshops, which particular triggers came from. Yes, you know, there's like from this dimension of the triggers and also the surface of the triggers. And we can classify because they have so many probably workshops simultaneously for creating these crossbow triggers for casting and assemble together. And also probably different benches because like they have different time period.

They create one bench and then later stage create another bench because the mode, the model change. So that means we can from this trigger production show how this workshop worked, managed for the weapons production. You know, we use this call that time, centralised the government with decentralised,

because they have different workshops, for the weapon production. So that's kind of how this weapon production was managed at that time. That logistic stuff is absolutely fascinating. And I guess also, if we haven't even looked at that now, we'll go back to weapons in a second. But this idea, if you were a craftsman in China at that time

and you were tasked with creating all of these weapons, and this is something that's never been done before, to create something, you know, for the terracotta army, these terracotta warriors. One, the time and effort, but two, well, how like extraordinary it must have been for the time to try and coordinate your workshop with another workshop to create all of these things that are demanded of you by the head of state for his elaborate mausoleum. create and i don't know about their time scale but as you say the whole process behind the creating of this this incredible ancient monument yeah so that's we're talking about because like this large quantity of territory the world is like over 8 000 that's only part of the small part of the

big muslim complex and also over 40,000 bronze weapons were discovered. And we're thinking about behind it. So that's kind of a strong, centralized administration, that governmental control. And also they have very skillful workers across people, you know, talking about some of the triggers. They have a big number, we can classify that. And also the arrows, the same, we can see different workshops and also different boundaries for this creation. And also we can see from the inscriptions. So we'll go into the inscriptions now because these are interesting. So talk to us about these inscriptions that we do see on some of these triggers. Yeah, the inscriptions on the

triggers, sometimes on different parts, mainly from my point of view. So that's mainly for the assembling purpose. Because when they marked all these characters, the instruments on the triggers, you can see because there's one trigger, they have five parts and they normally, they mark the same character. So that means they like for the assembling purpose because all these several parts are fixed perfectly and they mark it, not make mistakes. So there's one set of crossbow triggers. But actually for the other long inscriptions, so they tell quite different story. Well, we'll get on to those long inscriptions in a moment. Actually, no,

let's go on to them now because let's go on from the crossbow triggers. Where do we find these longer inscriptions? Yeah, longer inscriptions were mainly on the halberd or dagger axes, you know, part of the dagger axes, and also the lenses. The lenses kind of blade also with, like a sword, sometimes they confuse with sword, but sword is long blade and the small handle. But these lenses we call, so they only have a relatively short blade, but actually they have a

long wooden handle. But it's a similar type with a sword. And these lenses, they have long inscriptions as well with the dagger axes. So these two blades, these have a very long inscription. Also, the inscriptions marked, they both produced before the unification. That means in the Qin Kingdom, not in the Qin Empire. So these two kinds of weapons, probably they have been used in the battlefield before buried. Contrast to the crossbow and arrows. Because crossbow and arrows, we don't find any crossbows. We didn't find any wear marks.

We find some filing marks, you know, characters, but seems never been used. And the arrows, they were in the bundle. Bundle of the arrows, they buried in a pit. And also, we find the chemical analysis and also observation, you know, that you can see the consistency within the bundle and the variety between the bundle. That means the bundle of arrows has never been used in the battlefield. Otherwise, if you use it in the battlefield, they collect the bag. So they mixed all these different kinds of arrows, but they're not. So that means they've never been used.

of arrows, but they're not. So that means they've never been used. So arrows and triggers probably they produce specifically for the afterlife, the target of worries. But the lances and the halberds, they probably had been used before. That is so interesting. I mean, wow, that mixture as it were. I mean, you mentioned the word lances. Are these used by infantrymen or are they by cavalry? Or are they different weapons for each? The lances are mainly by infantry. They have long wooden handles, they're holding that, yeah. Because sometimes you think lance, you think cavalry, but not here.

Yeah. But keeping on the inscriptions for a bit longer with the lances and the halberds, what other information is revealed? Do we sometimes hear of certain figures being mentioned in these inscriptions, some really interesting figures who are mentioned? Yeah, so in the long inscriptions, it's quite interesting because first they mentioned which year the weapons were produced. So that's like they used the first emperor.

So like this, when the Qin first emperor, he went to the throne in the kingdom, when he was in the king. So that first year of the Qin emperor. And until, you know, he unified China in 221 BC, and also he died in 210 BC. So that's counting for the emperor's year, that's fourth year, second year. The longest screens first mention which year the weapons were produced. And the second, they mentioned who was in charge of the production. And also who is the main supervisor, that means

the top chancellor of the Qing states. So that means the weapons production well controlled by the government. So that's like the chancellor took charge of the weapons production. I mean, that's amazing in itself. I've got a particular name down which is Lü Buwei. Lü Buwei, yeah. So Lü Buwei was chancellor at that time in the Qing Kingdom. He was in charge of the weapons production. His name there. So that's like which year and that's Lü Buwei in charge of this production. But that's quite fascinating. And also the fascinating part is because he mentioned that the armed weapons mentioned a workshop.

Which workshop was produced? Called Si Gong. Actually, interesting, because Si Gong never mentioned in the historical records. No historical book mentioned this workshop. But only in the Muslim complex we find this sikhon, and they produce weapons and also produce some other metal objects.

So that means the kinds of probably metal workshop, and also governmental metal workshop, so produce weapons and other metal objects. Did Edison really take credit for things he didn't invent? Were treadmills originally a form of corporal punishment? And would man have ever got to the moon without the bra? You can expect answers to all these questions and more in the brand new podcast from history hit patented History of Inventions. Join me, Dallas Campbell, as I uncover what really sparked history's most impactful ideas. Each episode, I'll be recruiting the help of experts, scientists, historians, and even a few real-life inventors. Subscribe to Patented History of Inventions wherever you

listen to your podcasts. So we know not only when, not only under whose control, but also where these weapons were created, were produced. And also the last part is the real producer. Who made this weapon? So that's kind of the mentioned which year, who in charge of the production and where the workshop. And also the specific producer, specific name of the craftspeople who specifically produce this weapon. So actually, this is the way of the Qin society, and they call quality control. So they mark the name, the producer's name,

so he has the responsibility. He has a responsibility for this weapon's production and also the quality of this weapon. So why these two kinds of weapons have long inscriptions? Because this is real blade. Probably that's probably a little bit tough or a little bit challenge for the chemical composition and also for the production processes. Well, there you go. It's amazing how much you can learn from one inscription, from a few inscriptions on a few of those weapons, isn't it? It blows your mind, it really does. I mean,

if we move on from those weapons to another particular weapon, and we briefly talked about it earlier, but let's move on to swords. Talk to me a bit about the design and style of the swords, where we find them and why among the terracotta warriors. Yeah, the sword we find that's mainly for the general, so that's quite high status. And we find the production of the sword is quite a little bit complicated than other weapons, be complicated than other weapons because the Qin sword is relatively longer than the previous and also than the latest, so the longest sword. We're talking about because this is bronze weapons. Bronze weapons, they made tin, copper, lead, three chemical, main three chemical compositions. So tin is a very important part of this. High tin, so that's quite hard.

But that's very brittle and easily broke. And also the low tin is quite tough, but you cannot create quite sharp blade. And that's kind of in the Qin Dynasty, you know, the craftspeople have very good knowledge about this chemical knowledge about these three elements, you know, copper, tin, and lead. So the percentage of the copper, tin, and lead, and they can make very good, you know, weapons and blade. So they made separately because the center part, they use loating. So loating means tough. They just produce a long stick, like a long rod in the middle called span

of the sword. And then they cast on the second time, cast on the blade, the blade with the hiding. So that means they produce second step, two steps. The first step, make the middle part of the sword, the core area, so the long rod. And then they cast again on the top, you know, because they use mold and they have another liquid of the metal with the heighting. So, and the cast on the top of this core area, the rod. So that heighting can make sharp and hard. The loating can make the sword tough. So that means this quite long sword won't be broke when they cut, you know, when they're in the battlefield. It once again really re-emphasises the point, doesn't it?

That even though these terracotta warriors are to be buried, you know, and these weapons, they're not going to be used sometimes again on the battlefield. They are still designed, some of them are designed to be killing machines, you know, they are the real deal. And it blows your mind, doesn't it, how much time and effort are put in to create these particular weapons? Yes, they make lots of efforts, I think, on weapons production, and lethal weapons, and really

the polishing and sharpening, you can see, well sharpening all these surface of the blade, you know, particularly the sword and the lenses, because you can see, you know, the polishing lines, quite fine polishing lines and quite sharp. And the other very miracle we call, you know, because the part of the sword and the lens is well preserved because after 2,000 years they're still shining and they're still, you know, lethal. It really therefore begs the question that this lack of rust after 2,000 years,

how have they been able to be so well preserved to be in still such a wonderful shape today? Yeah, so these really great questions and challenging because we're talking about well preserved the bronze weapons and also the arrows and also particularly the lances and sword. But the arrows really also all have well, you know, sharpening because they have parallel lines. You know, we're talking about arrows because they are polished, they sharpened every arrow. So thinking about over 40,000 arrows, so that means that's really industrial scale for this production. And also the lenses and the sword, they're well preserved because when they excavate it, it's still shining, you know. Not corroded, it's well preserved. So in the past, because we're talking about premium coating,

you know, if these weapons have a premium coating. But this is really a challenging issue. And in the past, we had lots of arguments about that. And also, I worked with UCL, now Professor Marcos Martino Torres, and he moved to Cambridge. And so we worked together on these issues because the chromium coating,

if these lenses are sold salt they have a premium coating because they are well preserved if that time have anti-rust technology for the preservation of all these weapons but our research to show because the weapons probably they well preserve. We don't know specifically what kinds of reasons, because they're well preserved. But one of the reasons is high tin. Definitely the tin is relatively high, then can well preserve.

And the other is probably what we call quenching technology, probably in this time, in the Qing time, but not really, you know, chromium coating. But when we find on the surface of the bronze weapons, we have some analysis, and to show seems not much chromium. And also the chromium contaminates from the lacquer, from other materials,

not really coating, that's not chromium coating technology. But they do have some anti-rust technology to well preserve. So the possible is the heightened and the probably quenching. But now we have a kind of hypothesis. But we start, you know, in the museum, we have other scientists studied on these issues, try to use modern technology to investigate, to see what kinds of antirust technology on these bronze weapons. Well, there you go. Still so much research to do on that. It's great to see. Let's move on from that though to a couple of other weapons before we start

wrapping up. One that I find absolutely bizarre but I'd love to ask about are the hooks. Now talk to us a bit about the hooks that are found with the terracotta warriors. Yeah, hooks. We only find two hooks in page one, front corner of page one. So hook was used in the Qing time. They normally were used for the close combat. So and that means the in Pit 1, so that's mainly for the infantry. But actually not too many because they probably compared to the other long weapons

for close combat like lances and halberds. So hooks seem not like the other weapons that are really practical. So we only find two hooks, not the main part of bronze weapons for the Qing army. So mainly crossbows, So the mainly crossbows, and also the lances, halberd, and also sword. So that kind of weapons, that's equipped for the Tarakana army. For the long distance, we call long distance crossbows, and also close combat with lances and halberd. So what about the spears? Are spears different to lances? Yes, spears are different.

Lances are a little bit longer than spears. Interesting, these combine together. We're talking about lances a little bit longer than spears, but they both have a long wooden shaft, wooden handles. Halberd is combined with spear and dagger axes. So they're kind of combined together. And that's the main weapon in the Qing Dynasty. The interesting thing is that the halberds have a very long handle. So they're mainly used on the chariots. Because we find one is three meters of wooden handle. We think three meters is quite long.

It's huge. And also you need well, you know, maintaining not broken the handle, the long shaft, because they can reach probably a little bit long distance when you're on the chariot. Those are huge distances actually, and like for some comparisons with that, the hoplite spear of a hoplite in ancient Greece with the spear and shield, the spear was two metres and that was a stabbing one. And then if you go to the other end, the sarissa pike used by Alexander the Great's Macedonian soldiers was a six metre long sarissa. So that was six metres long, They were holding it in two hands in these huge formations. So if one's three metres long, and we can imagine the sarissa pike is a

huge one, three metres, half the size of that is still huge. I'm guessing we see in the West, in ancient Greece in that time, that you have these longeraching weapons, but for them to work most effectively, you had at the other end, like a counterweight, a kind of butt, a kind of balancing weight. Do you have those in the terracotta army as well? Do you have things that might have been at the other end of the spear? Yeah, these lenses or these halberds, this long handle. And at the other end, they have the metal. Yeah, the metal we call pharaohs. Yeah, so at the end, the cap, like a bronze cap, at the other end, they try to balance the long handle weapons. Once again, striking similarities. You had bronze, kind of those things in the West as well, in Greece at that time, which is fascinating to think about.

I could ask more about the weapons, you know. You mentioned earlier the ceremonial weapons. I'm guessing these weapons, the ceremonial, the special ones, they're not designed with combat in mind. They're for different functions, are they? The ceremonial ones, actually, yeah, we're talking about probably this only for the ceremonial purpose. But at the same time, this ceremonial weapon called Su also can be practically used in the battlefield as well. But there's no blade. But because they have the metal on the top,

even with no blade, they still can use to hit the enemies with this metal end, but not like the blade is quite lethal. But actually, they still can be used practically sometime, probably for close combat. Well, as we now start to wrap up, this has been great so far. When we're looking at the craftsmen who would have made all of these weapons, when we look at these weapons in detail that we have surviving from the archaeology, whether it's the inscriptions on

certain ones or just the design of them, what is this all teaching us? What can we learn from it overall about the logistics, the labour organisation behind the creation of one of the greatest archaeological sites in antiquity, in the creation of the terracotta warriors? Yeah, because I think this is both very important for creating the terracotta warriors and also for the weapons, the first different raw materials, you know, because for the terracotta warriors, the local soil, you can get this local soil and to work on the paste, you know, the clay, and also to produce, create a charcoal. For the weapons, mining at first, because you need to get the metal resources. So that's not local. They can go the long way for the shift of the old bronze, copper, tin and lead.

That is a big governmental control because the resources control, you know, there's metal resources. In the Qing time, metal resources is quite important because we mentioned because these weapons, the Qing conquered the other six states, so the metal resources, probably bronze or copper, tin, lead resources,

they have, when they first conquered Sichuan, so we're talking about, so that's like the first Qing kingdom conquered one state called Shu. And this Shu, this place, rich in this metal material. So that probably can provide a rich metal material for this production of the weapons production. So that can mean large quantities of bronze weapons. And the second is, we're talking about this bronze weapon, I think there's a long tradition of bronze casting technology. So when you get the raw material, and also they need processes, you know, smelting processes,

and go to how these, you know, purified and how they have a chemical composition, how they mix these three metal elements together, so and make perfect weapon, lethal, and also tough, you know, you say, arrows, and also sword, we both mentioned, because arrows and the head and the tongue is different chemical composition. It means they're quite hard, quite lethal for the arrowhead. And also the arrow tongue, they made different composition, can be flying, can be tough. So that kind of acquired chemical knowledge of that time of the craftspeople. And the managing, also that's a very, very important part for the production. You know the administrative management in the Qing society control the raw

material and also how they shift the raw material to the workshop for the production and also how these production process managed and how many craftspeople involved. So that kind of the weapons production and also combined with the target worries, we can tell. So they centralize the management of the metal production or ceramic production and and also decentralized small workshop, you know, and these kind of two combinations for the quality control and also for the specific production processes and to provide very quality weapons or quality circular worries for emperors, not for emperors' lives, but for

emperors' afterlife. We also can see how the empire was managed through this part, and to see the administration of the empire. It's so astonishing, isn't it, to think if you're at this high level of, shall we say, capable management to complete this mausoleum, these terracotta warriors at that time, terracotta warriors which weren't even at the centre of the great mausoleum complex. And then again, when you think actually they're even putting so much time into creating each weapon which will be in with the terracotta warriors. It is such a, I guess in some ways it's a statement of power, of what in some ways what the central state could do or who they could reach out to to make this dream a reality. Yes, you know because this really for the

management you know for the empire so thinking about that for the empire, so thinking about that, Qin, and the empire, so that's how they control and how they managed all these big projects, and also thinking about the manpower, the resources. So that's kind of,

you know, different level, different level of management of the Qin Empire. Brilliant. Well, this has been a great chat. And all I can say is thank you so much for coming on the podcast for not just one episode, but two.

It's been a real pleasure. Thank you. That's my pleasure as well. Thank you very much. Well, there you go. There was Dr. Shu Jin Lee explaining all about the bronze weapons of the Terracotta Army, the logistics behind these weapons and more. I hope you enjoyed the episode.

If you want to hear more from Shu Jin about the Terracotta Army, well, you're in luck we have got another ancients episode with dr shujin lee where she provides an overview of the terracotta army it is simply called the terracotta army we released a couple of months back so we'll put a link to that in the description too we'll have to do more ancient china in the future too it's a fascinating area of the ancient world and i've definitely we well we've got plans to do more on ancient China in due course so stay tuned for that now in the meantime if you want more ancients content where you can subscribe to our weekly newsletter via a link in the description below every week I write a little blurb for that newsletter explaining

what's been happening in the ancient history hit teams world that week and what's going to come next if you'd also be kind enough to leave us a lovely rating on either Apple Podcasts or Spotify, I would greatly appreciate it. But that's enough from me and I will see you in the next episode.