Aesthetics and technology: gold and silver ornaments in the Qin First Emperor’s bronze chariots

Summary

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 gold and silver pieces decorate the horse bridles, harnessing belts, canopies, wheels, and the crossbow and crossbow holder attached to the carriages. This paper will present the compositional analyses, as well as investigate the aesthetic and technological features of the gold and silver parts in these chariots. Comparing these to gold ornaments made in the early Qin period (from Majiayuan site, r.850-750 BC), we will discuss knowledge transfer, technological changes, and the growing appeal of gold in China during the Warring States period. Detailed observations and pXRF were used to study the bronze chariots. However, in comparison with the forging, the filigree, and granulationused to produce early Qin gold products (techniques assumed to derive from Western influences), the casting technique employed here for producing buttons, tubes, plaques, and rings seems more consistent with an indigenous tradition manifest in cast weapons and ritual bronzes produced for centuries in the central plains of ancient China.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• New materials and new insights for our understanding of the First Emperor's Mausoleum and early imperial China

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51013