Three warriors

Osher Gallery

Among architectural achievements throughout history, some of the most staggering are monuments to immortality and the afterlife. The Egyptian pyramids, the TajMahal, and modern-day cryogenic tombs stand witness to their architects’ obsession with life beyond the grave. The elaborate underground palaces and formidable terracotta army of China’s First Emperor, buried for more than 2,000 years, are perhaps the most mysterious.

China’s Terracotta Warriors: The First Emperor’s Legacy, on view at the Asian Art Museum from Feb. 22–May 27, features ten of the terracotta figures and a host of spectacular artifacts unearthed from the First Emperor’s burial complex andother early sites in Shaanxi province. The warriors arestrikingly realistic and intricately constructed, and through them, the exhibition examines the First Emperor’s reign, legacy, andquest for immortality.

The exhibition traces the major life events of the emperor, Qin Shihuang (259–210 BCE), who rose to power at age 13. After a series of bloody military campaigns, he declared himself emperor and unified rival states into a single nation, an enormous undertaking that laid the foundation for modern-day China.

Determined to consolidate power over newly expanded territory, the First Emperor set in motion a series of modernizing reforms. New roads and canals connected provinces. A standardized currency inspired the growth of commerce. And radical innovations enforced by the emperor—new legal codes, a uniform writing system, architectural components—established the infrastructure for contemporary Chinese culture.

A series of works in the exhibition shows these transformations, including architectural elements embellished with symbols of divine authority, and coins minted under the First Emperor that remained the shape of currency in China until 1911. Two replicas of chariots from the era reveal enormous advances in engineering that took place under the emperor: one excavated chariot, comprising 3,462 parts, weighs more than a ton.

But the emperor’s reign is a subject of controversy. He has been cast as hero and as tyrant, credited with China’s unification but also criticized for acts of brutality. It is said that he killed hundreds of scholars whose dissent threatened his authority, and ordered the live burial of scores of others. Some justify his violence as a necessary cost of nation building. For others, his legacy is tainted by suffering and bloodshed.

The First Emperor was also obsessed with immortality, and in order to achieve it he built a burial complex for himself.Accidentally unearthed by farmers in 1974, the burial site is a startlingarcheological discovery. The sprawling burial complex spans more than four American football fields, with an army of more than 7,000 life-size terracotta warriors buried throughout the site.

The resources required to build the burial complexare unprecedented. Hundreds of thousands of workers were enlisted to construct the site in a grueling effort that lasted three decades. Palaces, tunnels, stables, a theater, a zoo, and gardens form the underground empire, guarded by terracotta horses, chariots, and elaborately carved rivers, which scientists believe flowed with mercury. Gold, silver, and jade ornaments, ceremonial vessels, armor, weapons, and bronze swans—on display in the exhibition—accompanied the emperor in his afterlife. Evidence of human sacrifice was also uncovered at the site.

Thirty-nine years after it began, excavation is not yet complete. The emperor’s tomb remains unopened, and its contents a buried secret.

Seeing the exhibition

The exhibition is on view at the Asian Art Museum located at 200 Larkin Street, San Francisco through May 27, 2013. Ticket prices range from $8 to $22. For details, visit www.asianart.org or call 415-581-3500.