Confucius Ziyun: The initiator, its no consequences. In a short sentence, it shows the ancient custom of using human figurines instead of living people to be buried.
Zhu Xi, the great Confucian of the Song Dynasty, once made a note to Confucius in the "Notes on the Four Books": Figurines, from the burial of puppets also. The ancient burial, Sokcho, thought to be a guard, called a sword spirit, slightly resembling a human form. In the Middle Ages, it is easy to use figurines, and it has facial muscles and hair, and it is like a human being. According to Zhu Xi, in the Middle Ages, there were already pottery figurines appearing, with recognizable facial hair and humanoid shape.
In the 1960s, members of the Yangjiawan Brigade of the Xianyang Red Flag Commune in Shaanxi Province found a large number of painted clay figurines while leveling the land. According to archaeological excavations, this batch of pottery figurines belongs to the works of the Han Dynasty, with a total of more than 2300 cavalry figurines and human figurines, and the number is so large that it is the first time in China.
However, whether it is from the level of production technology and the size of the shape, it is not the same as the Terracotta Warriors of the Qin Emperor unearthed 9 years later. The discovery of the Qin Emperor Terracotta Warriors also came from an accident, which was discovered by farmers who resisted drought and drilled wells, and once unearthed, they caused a sensation in the world.
The Qinling Terracotta Warriors and Horses are not only tall and numerous, but also realistic and lifelike, and the sculpture and firing of the Qin Figurines can be called a miracle in the history of world pottery.
To this day, the Qin Terracotta Warriors and Horses are still the oldest and largest individual clay figurines in the world that we can see today. The average height of the figurines is 1.7 to 1.9 meters, which is as tall as the real person, with more than 300 kilograms of heavy and light ones of more than 100 kilograms. The largest ceramic figurine is 2.5 meters tall and 54 yards long, which can be called the "giant" of the figurines. Also unearthed with the warriors are pottery horses, 1.9-2 meters high, 1.6-1.8 meters high, the same size as real horses.
After the terracotta warriors were unearthed, there were some people in China who specialized in sculpture and firing porcelain, who wanted to make a pottery figurine the same size as the Qinling warriors, but after many failures, it took several months to barely burn one, and as for the pottery figurines, they could not make it. People can't help but be curious to ask, how were the Qinling Terracotta Warriors and Horses made? What's the secret?
Then use mud to pile up the nose, use a knife to carve out the eyes, use a brush to carefully draw the eyebrows, and the beard is pasted with a thin strip of mud and traced with a brush. The various hairstyles of the clay figurines are also carved out with knives, and some small pottery figurine organs and parts, such as hands, ears, and nails of the armor, are made of molds.
After the pieces of the clay figurines are made, they are first dried to remove moisture, and then the head of the figurine is put on the figurine, and the ponytail is mounted on the horse and fired in the kiln. The firing of Qin figurines is also a profound technical work, which is not easier than its production. Because the body cavity of the warriors and horses is hollow, once the fire is insufficient, it will lead to the problem of loose pottery and different colors. On the contrary, if the heat is too strong, cracks, deformations and even explosions will occur.
Judging from the more than 8,000 terracotta warriors that have been excavated, none of them have cracks, and the phenomenon of ceramic piece sandwich layers is relatively rare. Most of the clay figurines have a hard physique and the same color. In particular, the front leg of the pottery horse is as hard as stone. After the pottery figurines are fired, they are painted, and after the painting is completed, the production process of the whole set of terracotta warriors is completed.
The Qin Emperor Terracotta Warriors and Horses are worthy of being the eighth wonder of the world, and the ancient people who made the Qin Emperor Terracotta Warriors and Horses were superb and exquisite in technology, which made people worship!