Among the most amazing ancient constructions ever described is the inner tomb of the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang. It is said to be a vast room in which all of China is modeled in exquisite detail on the floor; the ceiling is a great arch of the night sky with pearls and other precious stones representing the stars; and most impressively of all, 100 rivers, lakes, and oceans represented by liquid mercury, flowing constantly from perpetual mechanical pumps. Could it possibly be true that this treasure room of unimaginable splendor may actually be there, waiting for an archaeologist to poke in his head? Today that's exactly what we're going to find out.
The first emperor of a unified China was given the throne at the age of only 13. He set about right away building his tomb, which took 38 years to build, and was completed about 212 BCE. In the words of the great Chinese historian Sima Qiam in his book Records of the Grand Historian:
...He had over 700,000 men from all over the empire transported to the spot.
Why so many, and why so long? Because it's really, really big, and required both an astonishing amount of skilled craftsmanship and manual labor. The workers included slaves, criminals, and conquered enemy prisoners; and DNA analysis of their bones, found in pits on the site, show they came from diverse backgrounds all over China. The construction project actually outlasted the Emperor himself. He died at about the age of 50. Construction continued for another year or two after his death before his remains were finally placed inside and it was sealed.
If you've heard anything about the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, what you've heard is probably incredible. Qin Shi Huang is the same emperor who built the Great Wall of China, so we should expect his mausoleum to be no less impressive. Its best known feature is the Terracotta Warriors, full size sculptures of some 8,000 soldiers, each unique, and each elaborately clothed, painted, and armed with real weapons. A walled city, 2.2 kilometers long, encloses another, 1.3 kilometers long. And within that is the massive earthen pyramid of the tomb itself, a pyramid 350m on a side — that's two and a half times the footprint of Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza. It's not as tall, but it's still 20% larger by volume. Think of all the impressive things you've heard about the Great Pyramid, and then consider that the pyramid at the center of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang is some 20% greater by volume. Another obvious difference is that when the Chinese pyramid was completed, it was elaborately planted with trees and shrubs. Today you can walk its slopes and mistake it for a lush, old-growth forest.
The ancient Chinese believed that by placing the entire mausoleum underground, the Emperor would be immortal; and so the entire complex was dug some seven meters underground, built well below ground level, and then covered up. By core sampling and using ground penetrating radar, we know that hundreds of buried buildings lie over an area of some 100 square kilometers. The Terracotta Warriors had wood shed roofs overhead, sealed with clay to make them watertight, then several meters of soil were compacted overhead. So it was with the tomb itself, in the deepest underbelly of that vast pyramid. It was dug deepest of all, requiring the excavation of an estimated 2.8 million cubic meters of earth, "dug down to the third layer of underground springs" as Sima Qian put it, and was lined with a vermilion stone wall to keep out groundwater. It was booby trapped with automatic arrows which fired from the walls if anyone disturbed it, and lit inside with candles burning fish oil rigged to burn in perpetuity. Its crowning glory, though, was the system of flowing liquid mercury recreating the entire intricacy of China's natural waterways. When it was completed, and the First Emperor was laid to rest, the unmarried women of the court were sealed inside for the Emperor's eternal pleasure, and all the skilled craftsmen were as well, to prevent anyone from learning of the tomb's secrets. Sima Qian described it:
Replicas of palaces, scenic towers, and the hundred officials, as well as rare utensils and wonderful objects, were brought to fill up the tomb. Craftsmen were ordered to set up crossbows and arrows, rigged so they would immediately shoot down anyone attempting to break in. Mercury was used to fashion imitations of the hundred rivers, the Yellow River and the Yangtze, and the seas, constructed in such a way that they seemed to flow. Above were representations of all the heavenly bodies, below, the features of the earth.