Econ_June_09

The Economist

June 9th 2018

HO is the true discoverer of a buried

work of art? Is it the man who stum-

bles on it and digs it from the earth? Or is it

the person who, turning up later, under-

stands its importance? Fame and fortune

often hang on the answer—especially

when the work is hailed, by many, as the

eighthwonder of theworld.

Zhao Kangmin cared for neither fame

nor fortune, but he treasured historical ac-

curacy.Whenvisitors came to themuseum

in Lintong, in Shaanxi province in north-

west China, where he was curator for 40

years (and still sat most afternoons, in his

trilby hat, after he retired), he would hand

them a business card. It described him as

“the very first man who discovered, deter-

mined, restored and unearthed the world-

famous Terracotta Warriors and horses.”

The vital word was “determined”. When

he was called out in April 1974 to look at

some “relics” found in a nearby wheat-

field, almost flyingfromhisbicyclewithex-

citement, he knewat oncewhat theywere.

The farmer-finders, all brothers from

the Yang family, had beendigging forwater

to feed their pomegranate and persimmon

trees. As they unearthed arrowheads,

bricks and body-parts of what later

emerged as the Terracotta Army, they

threw them away into the wheat unless

they were sellable. The finding of the first

more-than-lifesize head, rising from the

land of the dead, spooked them horribly;

they took it for an earth-god. All the same

Yang Zhifa, their spokesman, was quite

prepared todump thewhole lot in the river

unless they could get money for them.

It was Mr Zhao who told them that

these things were from the Qin dynasty of

221-206

, the first imperial dynasty of a

united China, and that they must stop dig-

ging. As a former farmer, he understood

their frustration as they stood sulkily

smoking; he gave them 30 yuan for their

trouble. But after years of loving history he

was now a self-taught archaeologist, who

at 24 had been asked to run the Lintong

Museum, the only one in the county. In

1962 he had himself unearthed three terra-

cotta crossbowmen.Many times, out in the

fields, he had found bricks with patterning

he knew to be Qin. Now, by the half-dug

well, he knew it again. So he reverently

gathered up the “dead” limbs, down to the

tiniest fragments, wrapped them in linen

and took them to his museum. There he

stayed all night, washing them.

Over the next three days, using epoxy

glue and plaster, he pieced together two

warriors. They towered over him. Their

ruler, the First Emperor of Qin, had gov-

erned by force, and his masterful tyranny

was clear from written records; but here

was a portrait in hard clay of a soldier

guarding him in the afterlife, with his top-

knot, boots andwrap-around coat. It made

Mr Zhao’s heart leap to see him.

All the same, he did not mention the

warriors for some time. He was a quiet

man. And he feared, too, thatMao’sCultur-

al Revolution was not yet over. Earlier on

Red Guards had smashed a Qin statue in

themuseum, and he had been forced to do

public self-criticism for “encouraging feu-

dalism” by caring for “old things”. He re-

fused to apologise, since with his field-

work in all weathers, rising on the dot at

4am, and the hours spent in his tiny book-

shelved study, at his desk set out with one

page and one pen, he had done nothing in-

correct. If he was incorrect, it was in failing

tovisit his parents asmuchas a son should.

In the end, though, he could not resist a

flash of justified pride, showing a journal-

ist fromthe Xinhua news agencyhis “terra-

cotta warrior of the Qin dynasty”. First he

had discovered them; now he had named

them. Once the national authorities were

alerted, proper excavation started, and he

joined the team that eventually uncovered

three huge pits filledwith around 8,000 in-

fantrymen, officers and archers, 520 hors-

es, 130 chariots, and real, sharp, weapons.

In 1979 the Museum of the Terracotta War-

riors and Horses was opened above the

pits. By 2017 it had drawn 100m visitors,

and Lintong, once a huddle of mud build-

ings, had a university, hotels and a vast in-

dustry of terracotta-warrior-making.

Mr Zhao did not attach himself to the

new complex. The Lintong Museum was

his life, and other eras occupied him be-

sides the Qin. He directed excavations of a

palace and a temple from the Tangdynasty

of 618-907; awhole roomofhis three-room

museumwas devoted to Tang art. Another

held Buddhist stelae, his special interest,

with inscriptions he had painstakingly

rubbed and transcribed. Amid all this, the

warriors took their place. He followed, but

did not join, the debates about them: most

controversially, whether this astonishing

jump in scale and expertise was the result

of contact with ancient Greece.

Waiting for visitors

In 1990 the State Council officially recog-

nised himas their discoverer, and awarded

him a special pension. The new museum,

however, did not refer to him. It was Yang

Zhifa who haunted the souvenir shop,

signingautographs as the finder ofthewar-

riors. Meanwhile, five kilometres away, Mr

Zhao sat beside his mended warriors in a

darkened room of his museum, waiting.

He had redesigned the building in the

1980s in brightly painted traditional style,

expecting a crowd of visitors, but few

came—save his wife, most days, with his

lunch of steamed buns. When others

turned up, his card spoke for him.

An army underground

ZhaoKangmin, curatorof the LintongDistrictMuseumand discovererof the

terracottawarriors, died onMay16th, aged 81

Obituary

Zhao Kangmin