New materials and new insights for our understanding of the First Emperor's Mausoleum and early imperial China

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "New materials and new insights for our understanding of the First Emperor's Mausoleum and early imperial China" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Rich material remains from the Qin First Emperor’s mausoleum complex – some well-known but others under-appreciated – are revolutionising our view of this early phase of empire in ancient China. This session provides an opportunity to combine multiple disciplinary approaches to material evidence, spanning pottery and bronze, but also including iron, gold, silver, and wood to which less attention has been paid before. We aim to investigate the use of natural resources, technological know-how, and state-level organisation, with a view to understanding how these all offer insight into early imperial China. We expect this session to foster new methodologies and theoretical frameworks with relevance to our understanding of the Qin First Emperor and early Empire in China, to the wider study of major changes across Eurasia in the first millennium BCE and to the study of other early complex societies.

Other Keywords
digital archaeology • Material Culture and Technology • Archaeometry & Materials Analysis • Asia: East Asia

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-7 of 7)

  • Documents (7)
Documents
  • Aesthetics and technology: gold and silver ornaments in the Qin First Emperor’s bronze chariots (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Xiuzhen Li.

    This is an abstract from the "New materials and new insights for our understanding of the First Emperor's Mausoleum and early imperial China" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Among the most spectacular finds at the Mausoleum of China’s First Emperor (259 - 210 BC) are the Terracotta Army built to protect him in the afterlife, and the two sets of bronze chariots designed and buried to facilitate his travel in his underground kingdom. Hundreds of...

  • Building the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor: Preliminary Patterns from Building Elements in Four Ancillary Pits (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ying Yang.

    This is an abstract from the "New materials and new insights for our understanding of the First Emperor's Mausoleum and early imperial China" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The First Qin Emperor's Mausoleum is invaluable for understanding the very first dynasty of Imperial China – the Qin Empire. Except for the well-known Terracotta Army pits, over 180 ancillary pits containing different objects with unique meanings have been discovered within...

  • Ceramic Manufacturing Technology and Organisation of Production at Emperor Qin Shihuang’s Mausoleum Complex, China (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Quinn.

    This is an abstract from the "New materials and new insights for our understanding of the First Emperor's Mausoleum and early imperial China" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Emperor Qin Shihuang’s Terracotta Army is an ancient ceramic assemblage of immense scale, importance and world renown. This impressive funerary assemblage, as well as the many thousands of other ceramic artefacts unearthed from the First Emperor’s mausoleum complex, have the...

  • A Collaborative Research Initiative on Iron Use in the First Emperor's Mausoleum and Qin Dynasty (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Bevan.

    This is an abstract from the "New materials and new insights for our understanding of the First Emperor's Mausoleum and early imperial China" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A collaboration between the Terracotta Army Museum and UCL has for many years been investigating the crafting methods and logistical organisation behind the making of the Terracotta Army and the First Emperor's mausoleum. Bronze, clay, wood and other resources were all...

  • Empire by Replication: The Making of Measures during the Qin Dynasty (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kim Sum Li.

    This is an abstract from the "New materials and new insights for our understanding of the First Emperor's Mausoleum and early imperial China" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. I will examine how the Qin empire (221-207 BC) established and maintained its rule over a vast expanse of territory by practices of replication, in which the making of measuring containers constituted the primary focus in my presentation, while other materials such as armors...

  • Forging Power beyond War: Iron Innovation in the Guanzhong Basin and Its Role in the Qin-Han Transformation (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only WengCheong Lam.

    This is an abstract from the "New materials and new insights for our understanding of the First Emperor's Mausoleum and early imperial China" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Qin state is often regarded as a war machine, renowned for its military prowess that led to the unification of China. However, recent archaeological discoveries from Xianyang, Shaanxi Province, suggest that advancements in iron technology were equally vital to this...

  • Iron scale armour from the mausoleum of China’s First Emperor and its wider context (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Charlton.

    This is an abstract from the "New materials and new insights for our understanding of the First Emperor's Mausoleum and early imperial China" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The excavation of a complete suit of iron armour from Tomb M1 (associated with the Mausoleum complex of China’s first Emperor Qin Shihuang), has an provided an opportunity to characterise this unique find and situate it within the broader context of the Qin empire and Eurasian...