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00:00Modern China was born 2,000 years ago at a time when two mighty empires dominated the world.
00:08In the west, Rome. In the east, China's Han dynasty.
00:14The magnificent palaces of the Han rulers have long since crumbled, their riches plundered.
00:21For centuries, the lost world of the empress who built China has been shrouded in mystery.
00:26But now, for the first time, China's most spectacular royal tombs are being opened, bringing to light the full glory of China's golden age.
00:38Evidence of their luxury and wealth. Treasures of gold, magnificent silk and precious stone.
00:45Watched over by a vast new terracotta army.
00:48Their rulers encased for eternity in jade.
00:53Guardians of a lost legacy that shaped a nation.
00:56The city of Xi'an, ancient capital of China.
01:15Today, it's most famous for its terracotta warriors.
01:23A life-sized clay army, created by the emperor Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor to unify China.
01:32But this isn't Xi'an's only imperial tomb.
01:35This vast monument is the tomb of China's next great ruler, Emperor Qin, leader of the Han dynasty that ruled China for four centuries.
01:51It was an era that shaped China forever.
01:54By the end of the 400-year period of the Han dynasty, this entire subcontinental area has a sense of what it is to be Chinese.
02:03It has a sense of a shared heritage and a shared culture with people who live 3,000 miles away.
02:09Soaring over 100 feet at the center of this vast mausoleum complex is the tomb mound where Emperor Qin himself is buried.
02:18Around the emperor's burial mound, archaeologists are exploring a network of mysterious trenches.
02:30Here, they've unearthed something extraordinary.
02:38A second vast horde of terracotta figures.
02:41Unlike the life-sized warriors, these are built to one-third scale.
02:52But at over 8,000 strong, it's an even richer find.
02:57What's more, they're accompanied by a stunning variety of animals.
03:01The trenches of the emperor's tomb were dug into earth and boxed with wood.
03:28When the wood rotted, the trenches filled with mud, covering the figures.
03:36What archaeologists have discovered here is not just an army, but a stunning replica of the whole imperial world.
03:46Down to the smallest details.
03:50Including two types of dog.
03:53Guard dogs, distinguished by their tail up.
03:55Family dogs with their tail down.
03:59Kept as pets and for eating.
04:04Each trench is a precious window onto the lost world of the Han Empress and their imperial government.
04:12From kitchen pot to castrated courtiers.
04:16Clearly identifiable by their smaller penis and missing testicles.
04:25These are the earliest known depictions of China's eunuchs.
04:29An elite class who occupied a unique position of power behind the scenes of the Han court.
04:35Only the emperor and his women, maybe a couple of children, and a bunch of eunuchs are sealed off from the rest of the world.
04:46There are no full men allowed in the palace except for the emperor himself.
04:49And so the eunuchs get to control access to the emperor.
04:54If you want to pass him a message, if you want to get something done in the palace,
04:57you are going to have to befriend a eunuch.
05:00The man who controlled all this, 2,000 years ago, was Emperor Jing.
05:13During his rule, Han culture reached its golden age.
05:18And China appeared to prosper under his leadership.
05:23Emperor Jing has a good reputation, but much of it was inherited from his father,
05:27including the ministers who gave him such good advice,
05:30and the wealth that he eventually spent on his tomb.
05:33During his reign, he reduced tax to 3%.
05:36That would make anyone popular, I think.
05:38He abolished mutilation as a punishment,
05:41and reduced the amount of whippings in the empire.
05:45So everyone was pleased with that.
05:47But it didn't stop Jing spending a fortune on glorifying himself.
05:51He ordered the construction of his own extravagant mausoleum.
06:00It took thousands of workers almost 30 years to complete.
06:05And Jing's behaviour often fell short of the lofty standards expected of an emperor.
06:14There's a dark side to him.
06:15His decrees are incredibly arrogant.
06:21He doesn't let his ministers take the credit for what was largely their work.
06:26He always acts as if everything was his doing.
06:31Before he became emperor,
06:32he was implicated in a terrible scandal that almost brought the empire down,
06:37when he got into a fight over a board game with his second cousin
06:40and murdered him by clubbing him with the game board.
06:44Murderous Jing built his colossal tomb complex
06:49just outside the imperial Han capital, Xi'an.
06:54Its ancient name, Chang'an, means perpetual peace.
06:59At its peak, one of the largest cities in the ancient world,
07:03with a population of over one million.
07:06For commercial reasons, not as a market town,
07:11but really as a political centre.
07:13It was in reality and symbolically
07:19not only the centre of an empire,
07:23but from the perspective of those who lived there,
07:27those who ruled and governed there,
07:30the centre of the world.
07:31It's also the same city where Jing's predecessor
07:36had constructed his massive mausoleum,
07:40guarded by the famous terracotta army.
07:46Xu Zhenli is a leading expert in these larger-than-life warriors,
07:50which loom at over six feet tall on the other side of the city.
07:54She's come to compare them
08:09with the smaller figures at the tomb of Emperor Jing,
08:12which are just 23 inches high.
08:14Once hidden from view,
08:24these exposed trenches contain an idealised imagining
08:27of a real world, in miniature.
08:34They're so small when I first saw these figures,
08:39compared to the terracotta figures
08:42in the Qin First Emperor's Tomb Complex.
08:47The tombs contain a lot of information
08:50about the ancient dynasties,
08:53religion, tradition, habits of that time.
09:03In this tomb,
09:04everything is a miniature version of real life.
09:09It's all been made to give the emperor
09:11a perfect afterlife,
09:14tendered by all his supporters and servants.
09:18The big tomb really mirrors the royal household
09:22and also the life of the emperor.
09:29It's easy to be charmed by these intriguing figures,
09:33but they speak of an older and darker royal tradition.
09:39When ancient Chinese rulers died,
09:43members of their court were sacrificed and buried with them.
09:50The Chinese have been including human sacrifices
09:53in their tombs since the 7th century BC,
09:57and this was a custom that was much lamented
09:59and deeply unpopular.
10:00By the time of the Han Dynasty,
10:03the practice of mass human sacrifice had all but disappeared.
10:08Figures like these were buried in the tomb instead.
10:11We do think that this practice started really as a sense of humanity,
10:22that it simply wasn't right to have people killed
10:27in order to serve a tomb occupant in the afterlife.
10:31The giant terracotta warriors
10:35were designed as an awe-inspiring spirit army
10:38to fight ghostly enemies in the afterlife.
10:42But why these delicate,
10:45courtly figures from the tomb of Emperor Jing
10:47are so defenseless,
10:49without arms,
10:50and so small,
10:52is a mystery that is only now
10:54being uncovered.
10:55In Xi'an,
11:08China's ancient capital,
11:10a team of archaeologists
11:11led by Professor Jiang Nuanfeng
11:13discovered an astounding,
11:15luxurious world
11:16in miniature.
11:20It represents the entire household
11:22of Emperor Jing,
11:23down to the last concubine and eunuch,
11:27buried beside his tomb for eternity.
11:31Experts even discovered miniature coins
11:33for the model figures to spend in the afterlife.
11:39These are spirit articles,
11:42small-scale versions of real objects,
11:44specially designed for funerals,
11:47made of bronze,
11:48weighing less than a third of a gram,
11:51and known as Banliang.
11:53The hand believed when they died,
12:00they would live on in a parallel world,
12:03where they would need spirit versions
12:04of everything from this world.
12:08And this tiny gold seal,
12:11bearing the signature of the cavalry general,
12:13was found buried in a trench
12:15full of clay horses and riders,
12:16a perfect replica,
12:20of one a general would have used in real life.
12:22Recreating the emperor's household in such detail,
12:41all stems from the belief in an afterlife
12:44that mirrored real life.
12:50These clay figures are not merely dolls.
12:53They are the court that will serve the emperor in the next world.
12:56And new analysis reveals something remarkable,
13:04minute traces of wood.
13:07To help them carry out their duties in the next world.
13:13They had movable arms that could be posed for different activities.
13:22Despite their small size,
13:25the greatest care and expense was lavished on making them.
13:28modern craftsmen are recreating how they were made.
13:35Every single figure has to be constructed individually,
13:38by hand.
13:42Clay is pressed into finely carved molds
13:45for the body, head and legs.
13:47and then assembled before being fired in a kiln.
13:57These small figurines we can see clear about
14:00the eyes, noses and ears
14:04and they molded and then carved in detail
14:07and also very clear about some details of the body.
14:13After firing,
14:15the arms made of wood are fitted.
14:17The analysis also found remnants of another organic material,
14:26which proves
14:27that they weren't even naked when they were buried,
14:30but draped in the source of the Han dynasty's great wealth and power.
14:35Silk.
14:392,000 years ago,
14:40silk was one of the most highly-priced commodities on earth.
14:44And it came only from China.
14:47The world's longest overland trading route.
14:49Global hunger for this highly desirable fabric
14:51gave birth to the world's longest overland trading route.
14:57From Xi'an,
14:58it drove through thousands of miles of desert,
15:01traversed mountain ranges,
15:03and linked China with Europe.
15:04This was the Silk Road.
15:05Silk was highly prized as far as the Mediterranean empires of Greece and Rome,
15:13where it draped the shoulders of the super-rich.
15:15Chinese farmers paid their taxes with it.
15:18Chinese farmers paid their taxes with it.
15:22Civil servants received it as a salary.
15:24It was so highly valued
15:29that anyone who revealed the secret of its production to foreigners
15:33was punished with death.
15:34To make luxury miniature costumes like these,
15:44with a yard and a half of sumptuous fabric,
15:47would have cost more than a month's pay for a soldier
15:49in the Han dynasty army.
15:51Exactly how these opulent clothes were made
15:58is still a mystery.
15:59In other hand tombs, from the same period,
16:20many figures have been unearthed which are not naked.
16:23They were already dressed in clay clothes.
16:29These empty-handed figures
16:34once held wooden musical instruments
16:37which had rotted away.
16:44And fluid dancers perform for eternity.
16:48Their elegant gestures
16:49have puzzled contemporary choreographers
16:51trying to recreate their 2000-year-old performances.
16:56In the old days, there was no image.
16:59In the old days, there were two-street pictures.
17:01In the old days, there were two-street pictures.
17:02In the old days, it was a great example of the art.
17:02In the old days, there was an image.
17:05They were like this.
17:07How do you know it is like this?
17:08Do you think it was like this?
17:10Or did it like this?
17:12Or did it like this?
17:13Or did it like that?
17:14Or do you put your hands on that?
17:15Three, two, four.
17:16Just a little bit.
17:18Five, two.
17:19Ancient Han dance styles can be reconstructed using the evidence from painted murals in Han tombs and the poses of the clay figures, designed to entertain the emperor forever.
17:32One of the things that Emperor Jing did is that he established that two of his ancestors had to have dance performances and rituals conducted at their tombs on a regular basis.
17:42But there's also dances as entertainment, as a form of introducing him to eligible young ladies.
17:53So dances are an important element in court life.
18:12The dazzling power, culture and sophistication of the Han dynasty reached its pinnacle in the 2nd century BC,
18:39when Emperor Jing built his extravagant tomb.
18:44But the vast Han Empire was vulnerable.
18:48Although the emperor ruled supreme from his capital in Xi'an,
18:52he relied on kings to control his more distant provinces,
18:56like the Kingdom of Chu in eastern China, today's Xiangsu province.
19:01The King of Chu became one of the wealthiest rulers of these far-flung kingdoms,
19:08and would eventually challenge his power.
19:15Modern Suzhou.
19:18A fast-growing city of 9 million people.
19:23Amongst the skyscrapers, visible reminders of its historical past,
19:28as capital of the ancient kingdom of Chu.
19:32The city had special status during the Han dynasty,
19:35because it's where their first emperor was born.
19:39With his blessing, the kings of Chu built themselves extravagant tombs,
19:44to be buried like emperors.
19:47The Han dynasty had reunited China,
19:49but dotted around in the east, there were kingdoms,
19:52and these were places where relatives and allies of the founder of the Han dynasty
19:57had been set up as rulers in their own right,
20:00and they called themselves kings.
20:03They had their own wealth, their own religions,
20:07and so these people stood a very high risk
20:11of becoming pretenders to the imperial throne.
20:13In the middle of the 2nd century B.C.,
20:18one king of Chu, Liu Wu,
20:21accumulated enough power to lead a rebellion against the emperor.
20:31The emperor crushed the revolt,
20:34forcing the defeated king to commit suicide.
20:37It's said that he was buried here,
20:43behind this modern facade,
20:45in an unfinished tomb.
20:49Dr. James Lynn, of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge,
20:54has joined local archaeologist Professor Li Chun-Lai
20:56to explore the 2nd of our remarkable Han dynasty tombs.
21:01A narrow corridor leads 100 feet down to an underground palace.
21:17It's not dug out of earth, like the tomb of Emperor Jing.
21:20This king's tomb is cut from solid limestone.
21:24The unfinished work of the stonemason's chisel
21:35is still clearly visible.
21:38This chamber is an almost finished chamber,
21:43but still you can see some rough area by the end.
21:47The artist, the labour,
21:50couldn't have time to finish to smooth the surface.
21:53So you can still see the trace of chisel,
21:57and still quite rough.
21:59Even though the tomb was never completed,
22:02the architect managed to install elaborate security measures
22:06for the royal burial chambers
22:07to protect them from tomb raiders.
22:15The most significant feature
22:17was a seemingly immovable barrier.
22:23Colossal stones cut to the nearest millimetre,
22:29blocking the passageways.
22:33They weighed six times each.
22:37They were stuck in the main entrance in the tomb
22:39to prevent the tomb robber.
22:42Despite these measures,
22:44the tomb raiders found ways to break in.
22:47The stones bear mysterious carvings
22:50said to resemble the nostrils of an ox.
22:53The tomb robber still drilled a hole
22:55which was called ox nostril
22:59in order to put the rope through
23:01to pull this stone out
23:03to get into the main chamber of the tomb.
23:06Archaeologists discovered the tomb raiders
23:10but also dug a tunnel.
23:14A robber came through the tomb
23:17and went straight to the rear chamber
23:21and stole almost every single piece
23:24from the chamber.
23:27Reaching as far as the rear chamber,
23:29the robbers stumbled across some of the richest relics
23:32of the entire Han dynasty.
23:36The kings of Chu
23:37had buried with them treasure
23:39on a staggering scale
23:41and their secret to immortality.
23:53Over 2,000 years ago in eastern China,
23:57tomb raiders broke into the tomb
23:58of the king of Chu.
24:01But they left behind something priceless.
24:10Thousands of pieces of jade littered the floor.
24:14Pieces of a giant puzzle.
24:16The shattered remains of the king's coffin.
24:24This is the only fully restored jade coffin
24:27in the whole of China.
24:35More than 2,000 jade plaques
24:37attached to the lacquered surface
24:39with nails of gold.
24:41jade was so rare and so precious
24:58that it was the exclusive property
25:00of the emperor himself
25:01and no one else could trade in it.
25:03jade was useless to early tomb raiders.
25:09So they simply stripped the coffin
25:11of its 1,700 valuable gold nails.
25:18Now, just a single one survives.
25:23They left all the jade behind,
25:25including one of the most magnificent
25:28funeral objects ever discovered.
25:31Buried inside the jade coffin
25:33was this jade mummy,
25:36made up of over 4,000 pieces
25:38of precious stone
25:39and sewn together
25:41with more than 1.5 kilograms
25:42of gold thread.
25:43The suit was crafted
25:49to fit the contours
25:50of the royal body.
25:512,000 years ago,
26:06in China's Han dynasty,
26:08when a ruler died,
26:09his corpse was carefully prepared
26:11for the afterlife.
26:12And jade was the special stone,
26:17setting him on the sacred path
26:18to immortality.
26:20The ancient Chinese
26:21didn't have diamonds,
26:23but they did have jade
26:24as a symbol of imperial authority
26:26and sacred power.
26:28And it becomes one of the symbols
26:30of imperial authority,
26:31to the extent that the word
26:32in Chinese for jade
26:34is a picture of a king
26:35holding a precious jewel.
26:37For the Han,
26:43jade became the magic ingredient
26:45in their formula for immortality.
26:49What I have in front of me
26:50are jade objects
26:53that were used
26:55either to cover
26:57or to plug
26:58the crucial openings
27:01in the human body.
27:03In ancient Chinese medicine,
27:05the sealing of the body's orifices
27:08was crucial
27:08for preserving
27:10the vital essence
27:10of the person in death.
27:14If you spoke too much,
27:18the vital essence
27:19would then concentrate
27:20in your mouth
27:21and would be depleted
27:23in other parts of your body.
27:25If you listened too much,
27:27if you looked at something too much.
27:29And so life needed to be
27:31a life of balance.
27:33And key to maintaining
27:36this post-mortem health
27:37are these nine jade orifice plugs.
27:41Jade that would be placed
27:43over the eyes.
27:45Plugs placed in one's ears.
27:48Plugs in the nostril.
27:50A plug for the anus
27:52as well as a covering
27:53for the genitals
27:55in order to ensure
27:57that the vital breath
27:58did not leave the body.
27:59The most important orifice
28:09to be plugged
28:09is the mouth.
28:12With the plugs
28:13shaped like a cicada.
28:18The bizarre life cycle
28:19of this curious insect
28:21made it especially significant
28:23to the ancient Chinese.
28:24They noticed how
28:28it spends most of its life
28:30underground.
28:32And then,
28:33at a crucial moment,
28:35it digs a tunnel
28:36through the earth
28:37up to the surface.
28:39And when it reaches the surface,
28:41it sheds its own body
28:44and transforms itself.
28:47Here you are,
28:50buried deep in the earth.
28:53But we're going to provide you
28:55with an exoskeleton
28:57similar to that of the cicada.
29:00A marvelous jade suit
29:02that will keep evil influences
29:04away from you.
29:05That will allow your soul
29:07to exist,
29:09to be preserved.
29:10And then,
29:11at the crucial moment,
29:13you can leave from your tomb,
29:15shed this exoskeleton
29:19we've provided for you.
29:21And through this body,
29:23transform yourself
29:24into an immortal.
29:32The belief in jade's
29:34supernatural power
29:35to give immortality
29:36gripped the Han imagination.
29:40Even driving
29:41Emperor Jing's son, Wu,
29:43to a peculiar addiction.
29:44The early histories tell us
29:47that Emperor Wu
29:49instructed his servants
29:52to collect at dawn
29:54the sweet dew.
29:59He would have it placed in a cup
30:01and then mixed
30:04with the shavings of jade.
30:08clearly believing
30:11that the purity of the jade,
30:14the magical properties
30:16of the jade,
30:18ingested as he was doing,
30:20would help transform
30:21his physical body
30:23so that it had
30:25the properties of jade
30:26and he would last forever.
30:30Emperor Wu lived to become
30:31one of China's longest-serving
30:33empress,
30:34reigning for nearly 50 years.
30:36But he didn't have jade
30:39to thank
30:39for his longevity.
30:42Indeed,
30:42as an elixir,
30:44jade contains metal elements
30:46that are potentially toxic
30:47and there's no evidence
30:49that it has any
30:50preserving effects
30:51on the body.
30:55Nonetheless,
30:56Han royalty continued
30:57to fill their tombs
30:59and cover their bodies
31:00with jade
31:00in an increasingly desperate
31:03search for immortality.
31:08You get this sense
31:09with many Chinese emperors
31:10that they have become
31:13the ruler of the world.
31:14They rule everything
31:16under heaven
31:16but they haven't conquered death
31:18and death is going
31:19to get them
31:19and they become
31:20more and more conscious
31:21of that as they get older
31:22and they develop
31:23these obsessions
31:24not only with their tombs
31:26but with the possibility
31:27of becoming immortal.
31:30The precious jade
31:31that played
31:32such a unique role
31:33in Han Dynasty funerals
31:34is still highly prized today.
31:36The 2000-year-old
31:41jade quarries
31:41in Houtan
31:42Northwest China
31:44still supply the stone
31:45to modern workshops
31:47like this one
31:48in Suzhou
31:493000 miles away.
31:56Like this one
31:57because this jade
31:58in Chinese people
31:59it feels like a tree
32:00what is a tree
32:01it feels like a tree
32:02it feels like a tree
32:03it feels like a tree
32:03it feels like a tree
32:04it feels like a tree
32:05it feels like a tree
32:06it feels like a tree
32:06it feels like a tree
32:07it feels like a tree
32:08it feels like a tree
32:09it feels like a tree
32:10it feels like a tree
32:11this is rare
32:12mutton fat jade
32:13named for its special white color
32:15this one piece alone
32:17is currently worth
32:18a staggering
32:19four hundred thousand pounds
32:21from stones like this
32:23from stones like this
32:24craftsmen serving
32:25a 10-year apprenticeship
32:27learn to use modern tools
32:29to create copies
32:30of ancient Chinese works of art
32:32Professor Li has got
32:35two thousand-year-old jade dragon
32:38from the Suzhou museum
32:39to show one apprentice
32:42the extraordinary skill
32:43of the ancient
32:44Han dynasty craftsmen
32:45Han royals believed their precious jade
32:48held the secret to immortality
32:49but as a preservative
32:50it failed them
32:51unlike Egyptian mummies
32:54the jade suits are an empty shell
32:57their bodies have turned to dust
33:30How exciting new finds revealed the Han dynasty's enduring obsession with jade, and how they
33:36clung to their belief in its power, even as their empire crumbled.
33:58In Suzhou in eastern China, capital of the ancient kingdom of Chu.
34:09Amongst the skyscrapers, this gigantic mound, part of the extraordinary network of 2,000-year-old
34:16royal tombs in the heart of Suzhou, being excavated by archaeologists.
34:24Here, across the city from the tomb of the jade mummies at Shizishan, is another vast royal
34:30tomb, Tushan.
34:33Only this one is from a much later period.
34:38A knot cut out of rock, but a pyramid of packed earth, towering 50 feet over the city.
34:48Although still impressive, it was built in the later Han dynasty, when their wealth and
34:54power were in terminal decline.
35:00It's taken archaeologists 35 years to excavate this mound.
35:08With meticulous care, they hollowed out the pyramid of packed earth, and landscaped over
35:13the site, revealing the tomb at its base.
35:19Clearly visible at last, these stone blocks form a roof over a series of secret burial chambers,
35:26dug out of the ground.
35:29Now cutting-edge technology can help experts see inside, without taking it apart.
35:38This one is located at the top.
35:50Firing a laser beam to a series of three-dimensional points records the data that can create this
35:56virtual model of the entire tomb site.
36:02Our model reveals astonishing detail.
36:09Four layers of giant roof stones collapsed in on themselves.
36:15Telltale signs of a break-in by tomb raiders.
36:22In the local history of Suzhou, only one tomb robbery is officially recorded.
36:30The prime suspect, a resourceful tomb raider by the name of Jia Hu, accused of building
36:36a suspicious hut on top of the Tushan Mound.
36:40He built this structure to disguise what he was doing, and over a 20-year period, he then
36:46dug his way deep down into the tomb mound.
36:56The roof collapse is evidence of an ancient crime scene.
37:04Archaeologists can now reconstruct the events from a thousand years ago.
37:09The tomb raiders dug a hole into the tomb mound from the northwest, and they came down roughly
37:19to this spot.
37:28And it was there in the central chamber that they found an enormous array of tomb objects.
37:38They needed a place to sort through things and decide what they wanted, what was valuable,
37:56what they wouldn't bother to take away.
37:59So that, for example, there was some clay pottery, too much of that stuff.
38:03So they just cast that aside.
38:07For the tomb raiders, this was a central area where crucial decisions were made.
38:12And from an archaeological point of view, it's fascinating.
38:19The target for Jia Hu and his gang.
38:22The magnificent treasure in the tomb's main chamber.
38:30The gold and silver, and the precious jade.
38:36At the time of this crime, in the late 12th century, the emperors were no longer the only
38:41ones to buy and sell this valuable stone.
38:45Jade was not off limits for the robbers.
38:50So Professor Lee's team fear everything the value inside has already been stolen.
38:57The archaeologists now trace the route taken by the tomb raiders.
39:02They brush away more dirt until a startling find captures their attention.
39:12The unmistakable geometric pattern of green stone.
39:17The remains of a Han royal burial suit.
39:21Remarkably, the 40 pieces of jade still together in their original configuration.
39:31It's likely the tomb raiders dropped part of the burial suit a thousand years ago, as they
39:35made their getaway in the dark.
39:43This rare discovery contains a unique feature.
39:47The jade pieces are still sewn together with fragments of the original thread.
39:54And one important detail threatens to upset current thinking about who is buried here.
40:00The thread is not gold or even silver.
40:03It's bronze.
40:07According to historical record, this is the tomb of a king.
40:12His suit should be threaded with silver, not bronze like this.
40:17Even though the tomb is smaller than early Han burials, the suit itself is made of fine quality
40:23and beautifully worked jade pieces.
40:29And this tiny piece of thread could finally place the lost king in history.
40:47It's now time for the archaeologists to lift the pieces of jade mummy abandoned by the tomb
40:51raiders.
40:56They pour a special resin over a carefully marked area.
41:09The resin will quickly harden with the jade embedded in it to be extracted in one piece and taken
41:17to the lab.
41:22What we're looking at here are the jade pieces that were, of course, part of the jade suit.
41:41The size and configuration of the pieces suggest they're a cuff from the ankle or wrist of the burial suit.
41:49It's very rare that we have an opportunity to see the jade pieces together more or less in place.
42:00And because we're seeing them together, the thread is intact.
42:04When we look at the thread through this magnifying glass, we see that it's made out of bronze, bronze that has already corroded and hence has a light green patina around its surface.
42:20The bronze thread is a much cheaper substitute for silver.
42:27But closer examination of one piece of jade reveals a further twist.
42:33On the corner of this small jade piece, Mr. Zhao and his colleagues have discovered a tiny bit of gold foil.
42:43And they believe that this gold foil was wrapped around bronze thread.
42:50So the thread wasn't simply bronze, it was bronze wrapped in gold, as though they were trying to keep up appearances.
42:59And what's interesting about this is that according to common practice, according to common valuation, bronze wrapped in gold equals silver.
43:13And so that combination renders the jade suit with the thread, as we have discovered it, completely in harmony with the ancient records that dictate what a local king should be using.
43:33It's a clever ploy for making the thread look expensive.
43:38This, and a more modest sized tomb, seem to indicate a king living beyond his means.
43:45The empire's fortune is in decline.
43:49Few tombs of Han kings from this time have ever been found, still less identified.
43:55The discovery of this thread confirms the historical record that there is a Han king of Chu buried here.
44:06His exact identity remains a riddle.
44:09This mysterious king was buried at a time when the golden age of the Han dynasty was over.
44:31His suit sewn with cheap bronze thread, disguised in a thin layer of gold, is proof the glory of the dynasty was tarnished.
44:39Their power and influence was in terminal decline, as rebellious kings and weak emperors tore the dynasty apart.
44:48All things come to an end, while we'll see later on in the Han examples of tomb grandeur.
45:03Generally speaking, the tradition diminishes as the Han itself diminishes in its closing decades.
45:14On the surface, the Han dynasty itself faded away.
45:23They buried their magnificent treasure of terracotta and jade in their tombs.
45:27But they left China far more than worldly wealth.
45:34Arguably, one of the greatest achievements of the Han dynasty is that by lasting for 400 years, they were able to homogenize everything.
45:41They were able to take these disparate kingdoms and countries and provinces and smooth out their cultures, give them all a sense of being Chinese.
45:50Today, over 90% of Chinese people consider themselves to be ethnic Han.
45:59They refer to their language as the Han language.
46:04They refer to their writing system as the Han script.
46:09And all of this reflects the perception of modern day Chinese that when they're looking to their beginnings, they certainly must look to the Han.
46:20They searched for eternal life.
46:24They gave modern China a unified social and cultural identity.
46:29That is the immortal legacy of the Han dynasty.
46:37Back for a brand new series next Sunday night.
46:39A voyage of discovery from Teddington to Littlehamton.
46:42Great canal journeys returns at eight.
46:45Taking no prisoners next tonight.
46:47Carrie's in Berlin.
46:48Quinn's on a mission.
46:49And if you're playing spot the Max Beasley, you'll get 20 points.
46:52Things are about to get quite messy.
46:54In Homeland.
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