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Ancient Man and His First Civilizations



The Terracotta Soldiers of Ancient China



Terracotta - A fairly coarse, porous clay that, when fired, usually assumes a colour ranging from dull ochre (yellow to deep orange or brown) to red.






Possibly in the process of making a copy of one of the statues









The Qin Dynasty Army

The statues of the infantry soldiers range between 5 foot 8 inches and 6 foot 2 inches; the commanders are 6 and half feet tall. The lower half of the kiln-fired ceramic bodies were made of solid terracotta clay, the upper half hollow. Terracotta Figures were found to be painted in red, green, blue, yellow, purple, brown, white, black, pink, vermilion, etc. The pigments were artificially produced from cinnabar, malachite and azurite as well as barium copper silicate.

After the sculptures were baked in the kiln, they were first covered with a lacquer ground and then painted with pigments in one or two layers. The terra-cotta figures have gone through a natural process of 2200 years decay, the lacquer cracks and peels off once the warriors were exposure to the air, taking any remaining pigment with it.

Following their accidental discovery in the 1970s the old soldiers have been carefully restored and preserved. They look well for their age and this can be attributed largely to Wu Yongqi. He is the Curator of the Museum of Qin Terracotta Warriors and Horses.

The preservation of terracotta warriors is no easy task. Most difficult of all is dealing with the colors, for originally all the terracotta warriors were painted. Many years spent underground has taken its toll on the ancient paint. Once excavated, what remains of the fragile coloring is lost within minutes of contact with the air. "Only when we restore the color can we say with confidence that a terracotta warrior has been preserved. To address this problem, we set up a joint team of experts from the museum and the Bavarian State Department of Historical Monuments," says Wu.

Plastic solution and particle accelerator revive faded Chinese figures.

The life-sized terracotta figures were found buried in underground chambers near Xi'an, China, in 1974. The clay effigies lay buried in water-soaked soil. As the relics were cleaned on-site, experts found that the exposed paint would curl and fall off due to water loss. As the figures are exhumed, their sodden glaze starts to dry out. The brownish lacquer, covered with coloured pigments, begins to flake and fall off.

Langhals' team bathes the warriors in a solution containing hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA). The organic molecule, which is commonly used to make plastics, is small enough to penetrate tiny pores in the glaze. Next the soldiers journey to nearby Lintong, where they are bombarded with electrons in a particle accelerator. This converts the impregnated liquid into a robust polymer, bonding the fragile coating together like glue.




Black was the royal exclusive color in Qin Dynasty


Brief Introduction to Chinese Culture: Colors in Traditional Chinese Culture.

For several thousand years in the history of China, other than the Pre-Qin and Qin dynasties, the Chinese people have used brilliant colors. Today, red is a very popular color in modern China. But the ancient people before the Ming Dynasty did not pay special attention to the color red, contrary to modern people's assumptions. "Yan Se" means color in today's Chinese; however, in ancient China, the word "Yan Se" had a meaning that was not completely the same as it is today. It actually meant "facial color." For instance, there is the expression "Yan Se Qiao Cui" (weary-looking) in the book Chu Ci Yu Fu (Verses of Chu State). In the book Shuo Wen Jie Zi (Explaining Characters and Expressions), "Yan" means the area between one's eyebrows, and "Se" means qi (or energy). In the commentaries added by the noted scholar Duan Yu
Cai, it says, "All the shame, regret, joy and worries are called Yan Se (facial color)" because "one's heart reaches qi and qi will reach the eyebrows." So it is obvious that initially "Yan Se" referred to one's facial color and not the color of everything in the world. Only in the Tang Dynasty did "Yan Se" start to carry the meaning of all colors. For example, Du Fu, a poet of the Tang Dynasty wrote in his poem "The Bottoms of the Flowers," "Knowing the good colors clearly, and do not be content with being sand or mud." The Chinese idiom "Wu (five) Yan Liu (six) Se," which is used to describe a myriad of colors, also reflects the meaning that "Yan Se" means colors.

About five thousand years B.C., during Huang Di (The Yellow Emperor)'s time, people worshiped a single color. After Huang Di and through the Shang, Tang, Zhou and Qin dynasties, the emperors selected colors as symbols based on the theory of the five elements. The order of five elements is water, fire, wood, metal and earth. These correspond with the colors black, red, greenish blue, white and yellow, respectively. Ancient Chinese people believed that the five elements were the source of everything in nature. As the source of everything comes from these five elements, the colors come from the five elements as well. Based on the understanding that "colors come naturally while black and white are the first," people gradually established the relationship between the colors and the principle of the five elements,
which guided the natural movement of heaven and the heavenly Dao. People also selected their attire, food, transportation and housing according to the natural changes in the seasons, going from spring, to summer, to autumn, and then to winter, which further formed the theory of five colors.

In the traditional Chinese system, five colors, black, red, greenish blue, white and yellow are regarded as standard colors.

The color black was regarded as the color of heaven in the Yi Jing (Book of Changes). The saying "heaven and earth of mysterious black" was rooted in the feeling of ancient people that the northern sky shows a mysterious black color for a long time. They thought that the North Star is where the Tian Di (heavenly emperor) is. Therefore, black was regarded as the king of all colors in ancient China. It is also the single color that was worshipped the longest time in ancient China. In

In the ancient Chinese concepts of color, the color white represents multiple things. In the theory of "Five Elements", white corresponds to gold, which shows that the ancient Chinese people felt that the color white symbolizes brightness and classifies it as a standard color, representing the nature of purity, brightness and fullness.


The color yellow is the color of the center, symbolizing the color of the earth. In China, there is a saying, "Yellow generates Yin and Yang," regarding yellow as the center of all colors. Yellow is the orthodox color positioned in the center and is the color of neutrality. It is placed above the color brown and regarded as the most beautiful color of all.

The color green-blue symbolizes the spring when everything is brimming over with vigor and vitality.

During the pre-Qin period, the symbolic colors of ancient China started to show a tendency towards diversification. In order to support the Zhou Dynasty's ceremonial observances, Confucius defined the colors of yellow, greenish blue, white, red and black as the standard colors and superior colors. He related the five colors to benevolence, virtue and kindness and incorporated them into the formal ceremonies. During the Zhou Dynasty, the color red was worshipped. Lao Zi, on the other hand,
said that "five colors make people blind," so the Dao School chose black as the symbol of the Dao.


In 211 B. C., Qin Shi Huang unified China. He still followed his ancestors' traditions by observing objects and deciding symbols, distinguished black from white, respected the virtue of water and "decided that October was the beginning of winter and its color was a superior black." When Qin Shi Huang ascended to the throne, "the color of the clothing and flags was black."

Since the Qin dynasty, color gradually assumed a decorative function and the colors of ancient China also started their rich and colorful development. Throughout the dynasties after the Han Dynasty, yellow became the special symbolic color of the royal court because of its brilliance, and its shade was close to the golden color. Ordinary people were not allowed to wear yellow clothes. Throughout all the dynasties, clothing for officials of different ranks were also of different colors. Usually, people regarded the five secondary colors as the inferior five colors. During the Han Dynasty, bright purple was often regarded as an extremely precious and rare color. In the Tang dynasty, the color purple was used in the clothing of officials ranking above the "fifth class" and was a color favored by royal court members. Purple borders were considered elegant.

In the Dun Huang Caves, dating back 1500 years, there are more than ten thousand pieces of rare murals. The colors uses in the murals of different periods of time are different. For example, in the murals painted during the Northern Wei Dynasty, red and brown were the main colors, supplemented by blue and black. In the murals painted during the Tang Dynasty, yellow was added as a major color, and the application of the colors was also varied, bright and magnificent. In the murals painted during the Song Dynasty, blue and green were the dominant colors.

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Han purple


















Despite Chen’s convictions, few agree with his stance.



















































































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