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Earth Chronicle 210 BC, Xianyang
In 2232, Rome captured Sicily.
The First Emperor won the government collapse.
The Tomb of the Qin Emperor, which has been built for decades, has finally entered the practical stage.
More than two thousand years later, in 1974, in Xi'an, villagers dug a well and discovered the Terracotta Warriors, and since then, the underground legion that has been buried by the First Emperor has shown the world the great military might of the Qin Empire in a figurative way with its huge and shocking scale, different looks, exquisite shapes, and neat and mighty postures.
Today, more than two thousand years later, there are various voices in the field of historiography regarding the origin of the Terracotta Art Form. One of the more shocking and vulgar is the Qin culture in the west.
In 1991, the German scholar Gelman Hanfler's article "The Birth of Chinese Sculpture Art - The Perception of the Terracotta Warriors in Lintong" proposed:
"The argument that sculpture art is native to China is pale and feeble. Without Western art, there could be no birth of Chinese sculpture. Without even the attraction of Alexander the Great, there would have been no empire established by Qin Shi Huang, China. "In a unified China, sculpture was born out of interaction with the West, from Alexander's wisdom and brilliant Greek art."
Ni Klu, a professor at the University of London, also believes that the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang may have been influenced by Greek culture, and there may even be craftsmen from Europe or West Asia who were directly involved in the construction of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum and the Terracotta Warriors.
Although he believes that the Qin Terracotta Warriors are not the same as Greek sculpture in terms of use function and manufacturing methods, from the source of the art form, it is still the "Hellenistic" influence brought about by Alexander the Great's crusade.
Typical ancient Greek sculpture
As we can see in the figure, the level of Greek sculpture art in the same period is indeed far beyond any other civilization system in the world. Looking back at China's history, it is true that before and after the Qin Emperor's Mausoleum, there have never been large-scale figure sculptures with exquisite shapes like ordinary terracotta warriors, is China's terracotta army really a foreign product of the West?
General Figurines
And this shocking and uncomfortable view Chinese is not only supported by foreign experts. Professor Duan Qingbo, dean of the School of Cultural Heritage of Northwest University and leader of the archaeological team of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum, as an authoritative expert in the archaeology and academic research of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum in China, also has a similar view, he believes that many cultural elements found in the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum:
"These factors may have spread from West Asia to the East through the Silk Road; at the same time, during the period of Qin unification, the political, economic, cultural, legal and other systems of the Persian Empire and the Macedonian Empire also spread to the Eastern Lands, which had a direct impact on the reforms of Qin Shi Huangdi."
As we mentioned in previous articles, Alexander the Great's crusade brought about the collision and integration of the entire Eastern and Western civilizations, and opened the era of "Hellenization" in Asia, and many Buddhist statue cultures in Central Asia were clearly deeply influenced by Greek civilization, and traces of this influence even spread to the Buddhist culture of the Western Xia Dynasty in China. For the many forms of art and craftsmanship of the Mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin, Professor Duan Qingbo also analyzed:
"The cultural elements of some of the craftsmanship seem to emerge as if they were born out of nowhere, and they are difficult to trace in the times that follow."
I also believe that the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of the Mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin is indeed like an "orphan product" in the art form of Chinese civilization, which appeared out of thin air in the long river of history and completely disappeared, completely without a process of gradual development and demise of an art and craft form that was born in itself.
Great Qin Empire
The State of Qin, as the westernmost country in the Warring States period, had more frequent exchanges with the outside world than we thought. And the era of Qin Shi Huang's reign, just one hundred years after Alexander the Great's crusade, Hellenistic culture has been prosperous in Central Asia and the era of development and spread, the fusion and collision of art and civilization is inevitable, the two great civilization systems that existed at the same time, there is no exchange at all is strange, so for the "West" of terracotta art, there is actually no need to be too resistant or have a narrow national cultural self-esteem and eager to deny, the greatness of Chinese civilization lies not only in its own brilliance, but also in exchange and tolerance. Collision and fusion.
Artifacts of the Etruscan civilization
In 2014, the Qin Shi Huang Emperor Mausoleum Museum and the National Museum of Florence, Italy jointly carried out an exhibition, Etruscan Civilization Exhibition, Etruscan Civilization is the predecessor of ancient Roman civilization, and is also the civilization of the same era as the Warring States Period to the Qin Empire, this exhibition is in the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum Museum's town hall treasure Copper Carriage horse hall, together with the cultural relics of Great Qin, together with the cultural relics of Great Qin, together to show the world the two brilliant and brilliant civilization peaks of the East and the West, the exchange and brilliance of this civilization is still continuing today.