[Music] my name is michelle sinclair and i'm an archaeologist from berkeley california my name is alex bear i'm an archaeologist i'm also from berkeley california i work for a company called pacific legacy and i've been doing archaeology for the past 12 years in california i've been doing archaeology almost my whole life i'm currently working on my phd at berkeley the best part of being an archaeologist is being able to travel and see different places and different landscapes archaeology is great it allows you to connect with the past in a way that really nobody else gets to every day is a new adventure the hardest part of being an archaeologist is having to focus on one specialty there are so many interesting things to study the most difficult thing about being an archaeologist i don't know it's all pretty great i have never been to china before i've never been to china before so i'm really excited about this opportunity when i hear the word china the first thing that comes to mind are ancient cultures of course but secondly is food and the diversity and different types of food that are there when i first think of china i think of an ancient culture that has so much rich history and so much to explore as an archaeologist coming from a country with over 200 years of documented history and going to a country with thousands and thousands of years of documented history i'm very excited i'm excited to see how deep the roots run and how far the history goes back we're going to xi'an china the home of the terracotta warriors we'll be in xi'an for about two weeks i'm really excited i can hardly wait i'll see you there the pagoda was designed to house buddhist figurines teachings and even relics of the buddha himself there's over 370 000 artifacts that are stored here the bell tower was constructed during the ming dynasty we're getting there you're doing it yes oh yes this area was used by numerous tongue emperors and high officials as a burial ground vampo neolithic village is thought to date to about 6 800 years ago only discovered in 1999 the pit features a collection of 11 terracotta figures believed to be acrobats you have no idea of the size the guidebooks and the photos don't do it any justice [Music] [Applause] [Music] the city of xi'an dates back over 3100 years and during that time it has served as the capital city of 13 different dynasties it's also the starting point of the silk road connecting asia to the middle east [Music] this is our first day in xi'an and we were really lucky to get a chance to see two pretty amazing sights in the morning we visited banpo cultural village one of the oldest neolithic sites in all of china banpo itself is a village that dates back about 6 000 years so the bampo village was discovered in 1953 when there was excavations taking place for a factory that was going to be developed there and that factory development was immediately stopped because they realized the importance of this archaeological fine [Applause] [Music] [Music] we were met by professor gao one of the main archaeologists at the site of banpo professor gao led us around and showed us a lot of the insights that the archaeologists there have found over the last 50 years of work one of the first things that we talked about were the different structures that may have been present there at the village behind me you can see two foundations of the types of buildings that were found here in banpo village one is a square shaped structure [Music] [Music] and the other is a round structure [Music] they're contemporaneous they're from the same time period and actually serve the same function this is really interesting because in a lot of cultures you don't often see two types of structures that are existing at the exact same time professor gao told us that each of these had between two and four people living in them at a time at any given time the site of banpo had between three and four hundred people but interestingly enough that doesn't include children this is partly because men and women did not marry as much in ancient society there the other interesting thing that we learned about were the different burials and the way that the burials were structured at the village adults were buried on their back often with other people in small graves what's really interesting about this however is that out of the 131 burials found at the site women were buried together and often they were related sisters men were buried together and were brothers but you were never to see a man and a woman being buried together men and women weren't really marrying they were mating the men were going out of the village and mating with others the reason that the men were traveling outside of the village is because we believe that the village was one family unit and so they couldn't intermarry what professor gao told us is that this may indicate that this was a matriarchal society in which the women actually had most of the power in the society the women were the ones who were buried with almost all of the grave goods including pottery and jewelry while the men were buried with almost nothing interestingly enough 15 of the burials were also very odd these burials were faced down with no grave goods and pointed in a very different direction professor gao doesn't know what this means yet but they're working to figure out why these 15 people were buried in a very different way one of the most interesting aspects that we got to see at banpo was houses built on top of one another traditionally once a house is destroyed you move on and put a house in a different location but at banpo as we saw houses were built directly on top of one another that means that there's something really important to the people of banpo about staying in the same location as an archaeologist this is really amazing because it allows us to see continuity in which people are continuing to stay in the same place generation after generation bampo neolithic village is thought to date to about 6 800 years ago and the reason that we know that is based on carbon 14 dating and carbon 14 dating is using samples of charcoal that we find in things like hearths and fire pits that were used to cook food within these structures throughout the site both within the houses and outside of the houses were a number of ceramic vessels the pottery you can see behind me dates to almost 6 800 years old it was made by hand and used to store things like water and food it was also used as burials for children who were placed inside these jars and then buried outside the houses many children in bampo didn't actually live to see adulthood the average age at death was about 25 to 27 years old oftentimes starvation and disease caused a lot of early infant mortality a large moat or canal was dug around the village it was some sort of protection for the villagers to keep invaders from coming in it was some 20 feet deep and 10 feet wide it was pretty amazing to see the construction there outside of the trench were some of the earliest fields in china the people of bonpo began to grow millet and wheat to support their lifestyle in addition to hunting and fishing in the local area they also were raising pigs to supplement their diet for archaeologists this is an exciting kind of thing to see because it shows the transition from hunting and gathering lifestyle in which people were living in a small group traveling frequently and sedentary life in which they're starting to raise crops and domesticate livestock the entire site of banpo covers 12.4 acres about two-thirds of this was residential while the outer third is all agricultural farmlands there were over 200 archaeologists working on the site between a period of three to four years there were some 50 archaeologists working at the site during one day normally in the united states we're more often doing what we call testing where we look at a little spot here and a little spot there and don't really get to see the entire extent of a site so for this amount to be exposed and for people to be able to see it and research it is just amazing [Music] after seeing the burials we moved on to the museum that houses all of the artifacts discovered in banpo these artifacts include a whole range of activities from hunting and fishing to agricultural production they also have a number of replicas of the houses that give you a chance to really see what culture and life was like back then the materials we saw in the museum include bone stone and pottery all of these were made into tools often all three of these material types were used for similar purposes all of them for instance were used to break up the dirt for agriculture some of the most interesting things that we looked at included bone needles and awls that were used to make forms of clothing the bone needles found at banpo are some of the oldest in the world and they were used to make some very early textiles and also another interesting thing were these bone hooks that were used for fishing in the nearby lakes and rivers [Music] i found some interesting correlations or some links to the things that i study in california as well so there were primitive forms of arrowheads and bone tools that were being used in the village they were similar to things that we would see in california or in the archaeology in the united states but not as refined which i found interesting but i think that that speaks back to the importance of agriculture that was going on here at bampo village this was definitely a society that was on the crux of change so it wasn't just an agricultural based society they were still doing some hunting but you can see that there was definitely a transition going on to where they were going to place more emphasis on agriculture and domestication of animals there was also one really interesting piece of technology that i'd never seen before and that was something that was very original to the site and it was a steamer it was a form of a steamer that was used to steam vegetables with a small pot at the base and a smaller pot set on top with holes punched in it they were able to steam foods from the bottom up very similar to what we do today some of the foods that professor gao told us that they were steaming include bok choy which is another one that i have in my kitchen most of the time according to professor gao there's still a lot of work to be done at this site and there's a lot more to be learned so by saving a large portion of this for future archaeologists they've done a really smart thing they've allowed people in the future with better technology a chance to come back someday and really learn a whole lot more about banpo in the afternoon we visited daming palace which was discovered in the 1950s the capital for over 200 years of the tang dynasty construction on daming palace began in 634 ce by the first tong emperor it took over 74 years to be completed but by the end the entire area covered over a square mile when we arrived in the afternoon we caught a glimpse of this large structure which housed the foundations of the dongfung gate which was the access point to the daming palace these foundations have been preserved in the building and they're quite interesting because they are massive in size at this time rammed earth was the most common construction style using wood boards filled with earth on the inside and stamped down they were able to create really solid structures these structures served as the base on which bricks were built on top to create the larger superstructure as well as the wall surrounding the entire palace so the dongfung gate burned the wooden portions of that burned down and were never found again but the foundations remained and that's what was found by archaeologists one of the really interesting things about the gate is that very few artifacts were found one of the few things that was found however was the top of a teapot that looks remarkably like the kind of teapot we use today i find this really cool just as a connection fourteen hundred years ago people were doing very similar things as what we do today the tang dynasty is a time of great wealth and it's also a time of great pride for the chinese today [Music] the construction of the daming palace was a period that opened up a new architectural style in chinese building and this was pervasive after this time period it was more of an opulent type of architecture that was more splendid and more rich [Music] next we visited the honuen hall it was a place where a lot of political negotiations were taking place this is a replica built over the original site to protect it the casing around the site allows for the preservation on the inside of the original palace structure the only original piece left is one large carved stone at the very top right now we're sitting on this place where tong emperors and empresses sat for over 300 years yes dumbing palace is pretty incredible it's pretty neat to be able to see these amazing views of xi'an and the entire compound here you can see all the way to the gate so the final place that we visited was a miniature of the daming palace so we're standing one of the most amazing models i think i've ever seen this is a 1 to 15 scale replica of the original dom ming palace yeah i'm totally blown away by the amount of detail and how perfect everything is here the scale um the craftsmanship how much work it must have been taken to do all of this absolutely and it really makes you realize how big this entire complex used to be really a pretty impressive place right i feel like king kong or godzilla [Music] today very little remains of the original daming palace but the scale model gives you a chance to see just how impressive the actual complex used to be really densely packed buildings used to cover this entire area so the experience was really interesting we got to travel around on almost like go-carts or golf carts and see the expanse of the site it's one mile by one mile it's it's huge you have no idea but what's also really interesting is that the palace itself was not reconstructed completely that would be considered kind of a desecration of the actual foundations of the palace and so the miniature really gave us a sense of what it would have looked like physically above ground [Music] i have to just say that today has been amazing as an archaeologist i am just thrilled to see this level of history and how far it goes back and how well things are preserved here i'm so excited to see what tomorrow holds for us [Music] this morning we visited the forest of stone steely known as beilin in chinese this complex held a number of stone steely which are tablets carved with writings we walked into an open-air courtyard it was quite beautiful and i was struck by the peacefulness of it and the openness of the area we walked down a beautiful pathway lined with trees to meet our guide will the first thing that he let us know is that this was originally established as a temple to honor confucius the museum houses over three thousand five hundred stone tablets of which about a thousand are on display at any given time the first display room that we walked into display room one had a numerous different stone steelies made out of limestone the entire room contains the 12 books of confucian doctrine on a number of stone tablets dating well back over a thousand years we were told that it took 10 to 20 years to practice the craft to be able to actually make these steelies these tablets had to be memorized by ancient officials who needed to know them inside and out if they wanted to really work in the government one of the interesting teachings that we learned about was to learn and to practice what you learn it was a teaching of confucianism that was written down on one of the steely tablets that we looked at as an archaeologist and a student i found this really interesting because it's sort of what we try to do every day the second room we visited featured mainly texts on historical documents one of the steelies that was found there was told to us to be one of the four most important stone tablets with religious text in the world the nestorian tablet tells the story of early syrian monks who came to china and brought christianity this tablet had translations of the bible into chinese the steelies were held up by what i thought was a turtle but actually is a representation of a dragon and there was also a dragon that we got to see on top of the steely these dragons are really important in chinese culture they display power and importance and they don't have the same connotations that we think about in western culture dragons are thought in chinese culture to bring the rain and they were very important to emperors some of the emperors in chinese culture thought that they were the actual descendants or the sons of dragons the third room we visited focuses mostly on different styles of writing there was the traditional chinese characters including the calligraphy style the general characters but there was also another form of writing which is called seal script this script dates around to the time of the terracotta warriors and is one of the earliest forms of writing in china it really looked interesting to me almost like a hieroglyphic that you would see in egyptian culture not many people know what these actually mean even in modern day chinese culture it's kind of cool as an archaeologist to actually be able to see the evolution of writing from the earliest time period up to what we use today each of these limestone tablets was hand carved using a chisel and hammer this particular tablet features a calligraphy style by the most famous chinese calligrapher wang shizhou it features nearly 2 000 characters and took almost 24 years to complete the final exhibit hall that we walked into display room 4 held the most modern of the steelies that we saw today these are more pictures it's really exciting to see this shift away from purely writing to a more artistic sort of expression there were people actually making the etchings of the carvings that were for sale using modern paper and modern technology they're creating replicas off of these ancient steely but this is a practice that goes back thousands of years [Music] moving on from the steely we came into the stone sculpture exhibition hall the stone sculpture exhibition hall was just built in 2010 this houses many images or sculptures of buddha most of the buddhas in this hall date to the northern zhu or shui dynasties from the 6th and 7th centuries a lot of them however weren't rediscovered until the 1900s many of these were built to be housed in temples but as war ravaged china over the next thousand years many of these were buried and hidden away from invading armies these were then rediscovered in the 1950s through the 2000s and are finally being put on display once again when i was in college i studied a lot of these religious texts confucianism and buddhism and to see their importance here in the culture and how pervasive it is and how long of a tradition that it's been was just quite striking to me and made quite an impression [Music] we're at the big wild goose pagoda which is as symbolic to xi'an as the golden gate bridge is to san francisco it's 7 stories tall and 210 feet high and we're climbing all the way to the top the big wild goose pagoda is located about two and a half miles south of the old city center located in the datsuan temple complex in english datsuan means peace and harmony originally built in 652 ce during the tong dynasty the pagoda was designed to house buddhist figurines teachings and even relics of the buddha himself all of these were collected by the monk schwenzong whose travels throughout asia lasted 17 years predominantly in india in which he spent time collecting things all related to buddhism following his travels trenzong returned to xi'an and presented everything he had found to the emperor gao song gaosong was so impressed with all the things that had been returned that he commissioned the construction of this pagoda originally the structure was five stories tall about 174 feet high at the end of the reign of empress wu five more stories were added to the pagoda giving it a sharper more pointed form than it has today it was probably damaged by fire and it was reduced to seven stories as it currently stands michelle and i climbed all seven stories to the very top of the pagoda we climbed the wooden staircases and stopped periodically at the different floors each of the floors has different things including relics of the buddha when we got to the top of the seven stories there was a spectacular view looking out in all four directions we were able to see the city in a way we'd never been able to before you could see a beautiful fountain you could see a lot of the larger compound that surrounded this area you could really see why this is an important tourist destination and why a lot of people come to visit here tomorrow we'll be visiting the shangshi history museum which houses one of the most important collections of ancient chinese relics in the entire nation as an archaeologist i'm really excited to see all this because it's going to allow us to get a really interesting glimpse of the past this morning we visited the shangshi history museum opened in 1991 this museum houses one of the most important collections in all of china as home to 13 different dynasties the capital city at xi'an has a really rich history and this region's history is housed in this museum there's over 370 000 artifacts that are stored here but about 3 000 are on display at one time the collections in this museum span more than a million years from the earliest human ancestors up through the warring states period and into almost the modern era of china so we started in the number one gallery of the museum some of the things that we saw there was information on early hominids and early man the lantian man who was actually a woman dates to almost 1.2 million years additionally the dali man is about 200 000 years old which is really exciting as an anthropologist gets us a chance to see how humans developed not just the chinese we also saw information on bonpo village and some of the artifacts similar to what we observed at the actual bonpo village site moving beyond the banpo period into the western joe period a burial of a chariot featuring numerous horses and the noblemen from the joe period is the kind of thing that we're going to be seeing becoming more advanced as the terracotta warriors period begins the next area that we moved on to had tripods which were vessels that were used for cooking materials another thing that we saw were bulbous wine vessels that were used to heat liquor [Music] we then moved on to the number three gallery which had information about the tong dynasty one of the greatest dynasties in china's history here the artifacts contained show off just how opulent the entire culture was gold bowls which were highly elaborate along with very very impressive figurines with really interesting paint schemes all speak to a level of wealth that's well beyond what china had before one of the first places that we visited had information on the agriculture and the domestication of animals in china there was a big emphasis on this in the tong period and we were able to see that pigs goats chickens horses were all being domesticated at this time period as well as we saw metal plows and hoes that were used in agriculture based out of the tong dynasty i don't much believe in zodiac symbols but one of the most cool things that we got to see was the 12 signs of the chinese zodiac human figures with heads of each of the different animals represent the 12 different signs of the chinese zodiac best-looking figurine was clearly the monkey it's probably just a coincidence that that's the year i was born i thought it was interesting to see my own zodiac sign there 1977 the year of the snake one of the really interesting things we got to see was the evolution of chinese money in the earlier periods shells were used as currency but as the culture advanced metal became used as money some of the coins we saw feature the very distinct style of chinese money with a round coin and a square hole in the center one of the things that was really interesting for me in this area was that there were also depictions of camel figurines this really shows a connection to the larger silk road and interaction with foreign groups and societies outside of china it's said that the abundance of mirrors in the tung dynasty shows that the women of the period were especially vain i'm not sure that's entirely true as i think my house probably has more mirrors but it's funny to see anyways we also saw in the tong dynasty collection an emphasis on horses and cavalry we were able to see beautiful colorful depictions of horses there and figurines and i believe this may be a precursor to what we'll be seeing at the terracotta warriors more emphasis on a horse based society [Music] the last few days we've focused on the archaeology of china's ancient history but today we wanted to switch it up and try to get a better understanding of the modern chinese culture today we visited the xi'an restaurant one of the most famous restaurants in the city [Music] today we're in the kitchen of the xi'an restaurant one of the city's oldest we've seen all sorts of really amazing cooking techniques that really i'm not all that used to we got to observe firsthand what was going on in the kitchen two long tables were surrounded by probably 30 chefs all running around doing their own specific jobs but in all this chaos there were people doing small beautiful acts of craftsmanship on this food we also got to see some of the cooking techniques that were used such as large steamers and woks that were used to prepare the dishes michelle and i spent some time smelling a whole range of different spices trying to figure out what they all were we didn't nail them all and some were completely foreign to us but it was really nice to be able to see some of these things and what we were about to be eating we were really lucky that the executive chef of xi'an restaurant chef shu was able to cook for us himself the chef is currently cooking xi'an restaurant's most famous dish roasted whole chicken and it involves three different methods of cooking in more than 10 different spices [Music] he also later explained what we were eating and told us about the recipes with their origins in the tong dynasty these recipes have actually been recorded in chinese literature and passed on from generation to generation okay [Music] it's delicious it's really crisp on the outside but it's so moist and tender it's pretty amazing the three main elements in most chinese dishes are color smell and taste and we really were able to see all of these today in the dishes that we ate one of the ones that was really interesting to me was a fish that was in a milk soup it wasn't a milk soup that we consumed it was given that name because it's cooked with pig bones that leech out the marrow and turn the soup an actual whitish color that looks like the consistency of milk [Music] the fish has a really delicate soft flavor and you get a bit of the flavors of the soup as well [Music] one thing i never expected to eat in my life was scorpion but after being told that apparently it's very good for your skin i had to go back for seconds and finish two full scorpions tastes a little like popcorn hopefully it helps you will find the dishes that we had today in other restaurants throughout xi'an but these are probably the most original and true to the recipes as they were prepared for the tong dynasty after filling up with the xi'an restaurant we're ready to go off to the xi'an city wall and see the city from above [Music] we had a really fun afternoon we visited the xi'an city wall we entered the wall through the gate meaning eternal peace this gate leads into the interior of the city this is the southern gate one of four large important gates that enter into the city it's at this location that many famous dignitaries are welcomed into the city of xi'an including people such as bill clinton the xi'an wall is one of the most complete city walls in all of china it currently stands about 40 feet tall and measures between 40 and 46 feet wide it spans the entire length of the ancient city about eight and a half miles the wall was originally constructed about fifteen hundred years ago in the sui and tong dynasties the first ming emperor zhu yuen zhang expanded the wall [Music] weapons of the time could not penetrate it the only way to actually enter the city was for intruders to get through one of the main gates the wall features really impressive construction throughout large bricks make up the parapets that surround the entire structure allowing archers from the ming dynasty to shoot down on opposing forces the wall is constructed out of a mixture of materials including layers of dirt lime and gelatinous rice extract currently the wall surrounds the interior of xi'an and this is our first real opportunity to look into the city the rest of xi'an is full of skyscrapers and large residential buildings but in here everything is much more tightly packed and much lower to the ground you really got a sense of the old and the new older buildings inside the city wall right next to more modern development a little over four and a half miles are available for visitors to ride bikes on that's what we decided to do this afternoon it was a lot of fun alex got his first experience actually riding a bike on the ancient wall and i'm not gonna lie it was not the easiest thing ever oh yeah as china is expanding xi'an ii is expanding and you can really see it in the way that this entire city is spreading outward but it really is great to see that the city of xi'an is preserving a really important piece of its own heritage [Music] today we took a rainy day adventure to the xi'an bell tower which is in the center of xi'an the bell tower was constructed during the ming dynasty in 1384. interestingly it was moved in the 16th century over 3000 feet to its current location in the interior of the tower there are two floors on the exterior three layers of eaves rise to 118 feet bell towers are featured throughout many cities in china but the xi'an bell tower is one of the most well known they were used to signal the morning and a drum tower was used to signal the night while this used to house a bell the bell was removed after in the 15th century it refused to ring any longer coming out of the rain we encountered a really beautiful little concert going on in the center of the tower cultural chinese instruments were played even bells [Applause] [Music] climbing the stairs to the second floor of the tower we were afforded a look at some ancient calligraphy there were intricately carved screens and the ceilings were really brightly colored with floral patterns i was really struck by the juxtaposition of old and new as we stood around and looked here you could see the development you could see shopping malls and a mcdonald's and starbucks while it's difficult to juxtapose the ancient and the new that's what we've gotten used to with china the bell tower is located in the very center of the ancient walls stretching out in each direction the roads from this bell tower reach the north south east and west gates of the ancient city wall right behind me is the south gate of the xi'an city wall where we actually rode bikes just the other day you really get a sense of the population of the city of xi'an and you can see by the traffic behind me that the population is quite large in fact it's larger than the city of new york the city of chiang is also quickly becoming a center of industry and technology research for space exploration and a college are actually centered here in the city coming from all cardinal directions the city's four main roads all meet at this point meaning that xi'an a modern industrial city of eight and a half million people is still keenly aware of its important history [Music] this morning we visited the royal tombs at chiang ling the site of chiang ling is located in chiang county which is some 53 miles northwest of xi'an chiang ling was built in the 7th century about 684 ce this area was used by numerous tong emperors and high officials as a burial grounds we specifically went to the mausoleum of emperor gao zhong and emperor swoo the site was originally commissioned by the third tong emperor gao zong who chose the site for its beauty as a tribute to his wife wuzei tien who later became china's first and only female emperor she's a very prominent figure in chinese history and she rose to this power pretty much self-made in 638 ce empress wu entered the palace as a concubine at only 13 years of age after that she married his son emperor gaozong after gaozong's death musee tien dethroned two of her sons and her official reign began in 690 ce she ruled until 701 ce at which point she was dethroned empress wu finally died at the age of 81 in 705 under her reign the tong dynasty flourished and a lot of the greatness that we see and all the artifacts that we've been looking at come from the time that she ruled we began our day on the spirit way a long path leading from the base of the complex up to the royal tombs lining the spirit way on either side are massive sculptures including winged horses that look like pegasus famous generals and two enormous stone lions [Music] we're standing on the stone path that leads to the mausoleums of emperor gao zhang and emperors wu each of the 20 stone statues around us represents the same figure an early general from the chin empire although each of these statues was carved by a different artist the terrain is said to resemble the figure of a woman the highest peak in the region is the head and it's where the royal tombs of gaozong and wu zetian are [Music] the spirit way represents the neck and then there are two further mountains that represent the bosom of a woman also along the path are two massive stone tablets the stone tablet dedicated to empress wu was left blank for over 500 years this was because there were no words at the time that she felt were sufficient to capture what she had done in her lifetime later on in time there were actual inscriptions that were put onto the tablet some of these depicting dragons empress wu is also known in chinese history as the dragon emperors which is a great honor because dragons depict power and strength outside the tomb of the emperor was also a stone pillar tablet this one was erected by empress wu for her husband and it was in seven pieces meant to represent the seven elements in chinese culture those being the sun the moon earth fire water air and metal [Music] one of the most interesting things along the side of the spirit way is a collection of 61 life-size human figures these figures represent diplomats from different nations and ethnic minorities on their backs the 61 stone statues have inscribed the names of the individuals and nations and ethnicities who were brought together by wu wuzetien to live at her court she was known for her keen diplomacy and being able to bring together numerous people these really give a sense of the unification that was brought about under empress wu's reign one of the most interesting things about the reign of empress wu is the changing role of women and men at the top of the stairs sit two massive lions which traditionally represent power and protection typically in chinese culture a lion is depicted as being either male or female but these lions were sexless this is a reflection of empress wu's desire to make both sexes more equal it was also interesting to find that during this time period women started doing things that they weren't doing before like playing polo and riding horses [Music] coming to chiang ling was really exciting today the entire area was covered in a dense mist that kind of rose as we got there it slowly exposed different levels until finally we were able to see the final hill the resting place of emperor gao zhang and empress wu the tombs of emperor gao zhang and empress wu remain unexcavated today as an archaeologist the preservation of these tombs and keeping them unexcavated at this time really shows me the forethought of archaeologists here in china they know that there's a lot to be learned but they also recognize that they still have much more to learn and that they should wait until they understand things better [Music] we traveled to another location where we were able to access the tomb this was the tomb of princess young tai the granddaughter of emperor swoon princess young tai died at 17 years old under mysterious circumstances the year was 701 right near the end of empress wu's reign the common belief about the princess's death is that emperors woo ordered it because she feared that the princess was staging a coup but on government record it says that the princess died during childbirth a ramp about 200 feet long leads nearly 50 feet down into the ground to where the princess was interred it's a pretty steep walk down into the tomb and you really get a sense and a smell of the mold and the dampness that was in there the tomb had been raided earlier and you can actually see the hole where the raiders had entered one of the skeletons of the actual raiders was found during archaeological investigations in the 1960s as we walk down the ramp there are a number of windows on either side showing off the artifacts that were found in the excavation of this tomb [Music] we also got to see a reproduction of the murals that were originally found on the walls of the tombs depicting servants that worked for the princess one of the women depicted in these murals was known as the most beautiful woman in china the murals are currently housed at the changshi history museum in xi'an we also looked at the ceiling of the tomb which depicted stars the moon and the sun the sarcophagus that held the princess was very large and made out of a very rare form of black jade the princess was buried with her husband and both of the remains have been removed the black jade sarcophagus is actually very rare and valuable in china we were told that it was taken from a quarry some 50 miles outside of xi'an and it was brought in pieces and reconstructed numerous animals and courtesans graced the sides of the sarcophagus delicately carved in presenting a really beautiful image for the princess's final resting place [Music] today we traveled 18 miles outside the city of xi'an we visited the burial mound of qin shihuang di china's first emperor and the builder of the terracotta army this is the biggest and most well-preserved burial mound in all of china ascending to the throne in 247 bce huangdi was only 13 years old despite his young age he was able to consolidate power and quickly dominate all of his rivals bringing an end to what is known as the warring states period in 221 bce he finally unified the entire nation of china bringing it under the qin empire emperor chinchiwong d began developing this area for his burial complex before he became the ultimate ruler behind me is the burial mound of emperor chinchiwong d china's first emperor obsessed with his own mortality he commissioned 700 000 workers to hand make the entire hill there this man-made burial mound contains the mausoleum of the emperor and although relatively little excavation has been done here it is believed to contain a full-scale model of the qin empire who knows what treasures still remain in the hill or even in the area just below our feet in addition to building the terracotta army chinche huang di is also well known for being the first emperor to begin construction on the great wall of china additionally he codified a broad system of laws and developed a system of roads throughout china that's longer today than the entire american highway network under his reign there were tremendous technological advances including the standardization of weights and measures chinese script as well as coinage following three assassination attempts chinche huang di became increasingly worried about his mortality he began searching for ways to become immortal seeking out wizards and anyone who could possibly give him the secret to eternal life he sent his armies throughout the realm looking for different ways to extend his life one of the ways qin shihuang di believed he could attain immortality was through the ingestion of mercury throughout his entire reign of only 11 years he was consistently consuming mercury at a level that is today very very unsafe chinche huangdi was also known to be against any kinds of scholarship and most free thought during his reign he ordered the burning of all books throughout the empire related to anything other than himself he also ordered the burial of 406 live confucian scholars archaeologists have yet to excavate the burial mound partly because chinche huang di is the first emperor and a national treasure but also for health concerns reportedly rivers of mercury surround his tomb and make the entire place relatively dangerous to excavate this afternoon we were also able to visit some actual archaeological excavations we got to visit two pits that had joined the actual burial mound at the first pit we walked into a building that covered the excavations this was the first time we saw archaeologists in action the archaeologists behind me are practicing many of the very same techniques that we do in america while there are always differences between the ways different countries do their archaeology it's always amazing how similar it is that we're all looking for the same sort of truth one of the archaeologists had long stretches of tape rolled out and he was measuring and drawing sides of the wall and some of the artifacts there to document them for further research right below them we were able to see a line of terra cotta sculptures there was also a group of archaeologists that were chipping away at an area only discovered in 1999 the pit features a collection of 11 terracotta figures believed to be acrobats they were wearing short skirts and their arms and their legs and top were actually bare some of the other things that were found in there were a tripod that was a humongous in size in fact they think that it was used as a weight the second pit we visited was only discovered in the year 2000 it was about a third of the size of the other pit it features a similar construction style to the first pit but has a different collection of figures inside we saw skeletons of horses we also saw what may have been the outline of a chariot and some other terracotta figures pit two contains eight terracotta figures these ones may have been the chariot drivers or they may have been lawyers some of the sculptures had different hand posturing the one that i thought was interesting was to the sculptures had their arms extended it looked like you could almost imagine them holding the reins of the chariot each of the terra cotta sculptures was a little bit different from the other one they had different hairstyles different facial expressions and different types of dress it was said that this represents the stables of the emperor it's always helpful to be able to see a recreation of what's believed to have been the past practices in pit 2 we can see the reconstruction of walls as they're originally believed to have been built panels stacked on top of one another would have been layered with beams over the top and then covered with a layer of dirt leaving the inside completely open in addition to some of the things that are clearly important to any visitor as an archaeologist it was really interesting to see some of the other aspects of the excavation wood different timbers and the imprint of the wood paneling really gave us a sense for how this tune was constructed and what happened when it fell apart some of the other impressions that i got while we were looking at these two pits were about the archaeological techniques there were actually a lot of differences as well back home we only get to excavate a small area and to see a massive area exposed was quite intriguing it appeared that the archaeologists here weren't digging in very succinct levels like we do at home that may be because all of this is known to be associated with one event the burial of qin shi huang di visiting the burial mound of chinche huang di today was really exciting because it gives us a chance to put in context the man who built the terracotta army so tomorrow we're heading to the terracotta warriors which is a little less than two miles away from here i'm so excited this is a world-renowned archaeological site and we're gonna get to learn first-hand from archaeologists there just what this is all about [Music] today was the finale of our trip the last place that we visited was the home of the terracotta warriors nothing can prepare you for the massive grandeur of this place it's huge wow it was enormous in size it's like a giant airplane hanger probably fitting five football fields in the entire area and all the warriors are facing you you have no idea of the size and the amount until you actually get here and experience this yeah the guidebooks and the photos don't do any justice yeah i had no idea of the scale of this until we actually got there row upon rove soldiers arranged in a battle formation are wearing armor and wielding weapons as though prepared to defend their emperor both in life and in death [Music] it's believed in chinese culture that the spirit lives on after life so emperor chinchiwong di wanted these warriors to protect his spirit in the afterlife [Music] we're at pit number one of the terracotta warriors this is really one of the most amazing things i think i've ever seen it is really great to be here all of the soldiers in this room are infantry meaning they attacked on foot with spears or swords at first it looks like they're all in formation they're all in straight rows and they're all exactly the same but as we begin to walk and look a little bit closer we begin to see little details and variations in each of the warriors each one of these is an individual with individual hairstyles armor and weaponry [Music] the next thing that we were able to see was the actual well where the first terracotta warriors were encountered this well was found in 1974 by a group of farmers that were looking for water i don't think they had any idea about what they were going to encounter in pit 1 over 2 000 terracotta soldiers have already been discovered it's believed however that another 4 000 are still buried and archaeologists are leaving these underground for future generations to unearth the pit itself is composed of 11 corridors each lined with soldiers the walls in between these corridors are rammed earth i as an archaeologist originally thought that they were bulks that were left behind by the archaeologists but come to find out that these were actually rooms that housed the different warriors these walls would have been lined with wooden planks and then laid over the top with wooden beams on top of these were fiber mats and on top of that was another layer of dirt covering the entire interior section [Music] while the majority of the statues in this room are very well preserved an area in the middle shows just how archaeologists would have found them when they first did excavations one of the most impressive things about this room is the preservation of all these statues we spoke with the lead archaeologist at the site mr shen who said however that this was not always the case so all these these figures were they reconstructed yeah or um were they broken yeah oh wow wow so these had to be what what do you use some sort of glue glue yeah so when these soldiers break yeah how many pieces do you have to put back together uh that's number two uh some is more than 100 pieces 15 60 yeah and how about was there paint on these originally is the paint gone were they painted colors yeah yeah and it's gone but some parts also still i think yeah then we cooperate with german and some other country to use some new way to protect it okay so they say that no two of these soldiers are the same is that true yeah it's not that each soldier had to come in and model for one of the artists foreign we also got to learn a little bit more information about their construction that they were made out of coils of clay that were hand pressed together and that they were hollow inside getting to see some of the actual archaeological practices was a really exciting opportunity behind me you can see some of mr shen's team of about 20 archaeologists working in a field laboratory conducting experiments on some of the materials that they've dug out of the ground they're all professionally trained and have been to college and that it's actually a great honor to be doing archaeology in china specifically in this really interesting spot the archaeologists are comprised of half male and half female they do this as a professional job it's not a university sponsored thing [Music] there's great government support here and a lot of funding for the work that's being done there are actually a lot of similarities in the way that they're recording things and the way that they're reporting things taking photographs using 3d models [Music] the chinese archaeologists here are seeking outside information and have been working with other countries their hope is to soon publish a report that will shed even more light on the terracotta warriors and start to bring in more information from outside sources about the work that they're doing here one of the things that i was happiest to hear from professor shen was that archaeology is becoming one of the most sought after majors in chinese universities to become an archaeology major requires a really high level of testing which means that in the next generation the archaeologists that china is producing are going to be working at a very high level overall i was incredibly impressed by the sheer grandeur of this room as well as the uniformity of all the soldiers held within the pit [Music] how long have you worked at this site uh maybe 10 years you were really lucky we moved on to pit number two which was quite different than what we had seen in pit number one it was a bit smaller scale in size though not fully reconstructed pit 2 contains approximately 900 soldiers 466 horses and 89 chariots when we first entered the room it's a little bit darker in this area and you definitely don't get struck by all the warriors facing you in fact what you see here is more indication of the structures that actually contain the warriors at the other end of pit 2 you can see the original ground surface it's about 15 feet down to where the tomb of these ancient terracotta soldiers was actually discovered down here what you see are the remains of the beams that went over that created an empty space where the terracotta soldiers were housed all the ridges represent the wooden beams that have decomposed and filled in with earth over time we got to see a different set of warriors the ones that we were seeing in pit 1 were footmen and they were infantry we find infantry along with numerous archers including crossbowmen and longbowmen and charioteers including all of their horses in addition to the sculptures of warriors there's one set of human remains while we don't know if this was an artisan buried alive or a later burial it adds a very human dimension to the pit the thing that really struck home for me for the first time we were really able to see the details in the construction of these warriors details such as hair interesting braids shoes including their treads and ribbons tied on armor really give a sense that this was an individual person the terracotta warriors were built from the ground up section by section they were later fired in the kiln the arms and the head were removable then paint was placed on them i saw a little bit of red pigmentation on one of the warriors that we looked at we also got to learn about the differences in ranking and some of those things happened based on the different hairstyles different types of hats and even different types of shoes we were told that some of the weaponry is missing because after the tomb was sealed up a general that was probably a rival of the emperor may have looted some of these warriors and taken the heads and hands and some of the weapons as revenge lastly we went to the third pit this one was much smaller than the other two and it was in a different shape the room was u-shaped pit 3 is believed to be one of the most important containing generals and a number of high-ranking officers this room is believed to be the command center of emperor chen che hong-di's terracotta army it was really interesting to walk into that room and be greeted by four horses and men that were probably riding chariots and conducting these horses surrounding him are 68 other figures to their left are a number of high-ranking officials conferring as though they're planning something for battle on the right side of the room are the remains of a number of crushed soldiers as they would have been originally discovered the great experience for us was after we walked in we were able to walk out onto a very narrow ledge and look down over onto these warriors you really felt like you were getting a bird's eye view and getting to get really close to the warriors there this trip for me was really about reinvigorating my sense and my love of archaeology to see these really great incredible works especially these terracotta warriors today inspires me again makes me believe that there are interesting things out there to find personally i've had an incredible amount of fun i'm kind of a nerd and so being able to see all of these archaeological sites up close is just a great experience i've been kind of nervous every time we go to a new site just excited to see the splendor as a mother another thing that profoundly impacted me here is the importance of learning about the past and passing that on to my daughter i really saw here in china the importance on history the importance of generations on the older generation about learning from the past i plan to do that myself i really want to implement histories and the knowledge of histories i hope our future generations don't lose that importance the field of archaeology isn't exactly lucrative no one's gonna get very rich being an archaeologist but we do it because we love it and seeing people in china who love it just as much as we do really makes me happy that archaeology around the world is thriving [Music] you