Soldiers for Qin Shihuangdi

     For today's blog post, we are going to be learning about very impressive sculptures that were created to accompany Qin Shihuangdi in the afterlife. In 1974 a Chinese peasant discovered life-size statues positioned for battle, as well as other ceramic figures. He discovered them while digging a well. Each sculpture was designed with an impressive amount of detail and individuality, and they were all apart of the terra-cotta army. There is a reason to believe that each one was sculpted after a real living soldier. Researchers concluded this because of the detail and individuality of each one. However, more recently researchers believe that these ceramic statues are a result of mass production. They believe that they may have created multiple head shapes, body parts, uniforms, hairstyles, and then the assembled them. They took random pieces and parts that they created, and they assembled them to complete the statues. This would mean that they are in fact not statues of real people. The Archer is an example of artistry that leads people to believe these sculptures were actual living soldiers. These statues of soldiers created for Qin Shihuangdi are remarkable pieces of art.

- Sydney Cruse