All language subtitles for The Greatest Tomb on Earth Secrets of Ancient China BBC 1080p EN SUB

I'm Dan Snow and I've come to China
to investigate

the single largest burial site
on Earth.

Starting with its greatest
treasure - the Terracotta Army.

That is one of the most wonderful
views in the world.

Over 1,000 warriors guarding their
ruler for eternity.

With the possible exception of
the Great Wall,

there's nothing more Chinese
than these warriors.

And yet, a new theory suggests that
this great icon of China

may be guarding an explosive secret.

New evidence suggests that the
inspiration for all this

could have come from the West.

There's a possibility they really
have some other culture stimulation.

That is such an important idea.

The person who made that had an
understanding of anatomy

that is extremely surprising.

It's often thought China grew up
isolated from the West

until Italian explorer Marco Polo
came here in the 13th century.

But if we could prove that
wrong by 1,000 years,

it would rewrite the history books.

To help in my search I'm joined by
two expert investigators -

Alice Roberts and Albert Lin.

As our medical scientist,

Alice will be examining any human
remains buried here.

This doesn't look like
a typically East Asian skull.

Albert will use the latest imaging
technology to try and find

the first roads joining
East and West.

If I'm right then what I'm standing
on right here could be one of

the roads built by the
First Emperor.

And I'll be interrogating the
secrets of the Emperor's mausoleum

looking for the traces of
Western technology.

Look at that! That's fantastic.

Together we'll be exploring an
extraordinary possibility

that East and West were connected

far earlier than anyone
thought possible

and that connection changed
the face of China.

This is the starting point for
our investigation,

one of the most hallowed sites
in all of China.

The burial grounds of the
First Emperor.

Oh, yeah. That, according to legend,

is the First Emperor's tomb.

Albert is setting out to survey
the entire burial site

by climbing the tomb.

In over 2,000 years, no-one has been
inside this sacred earth pyramid.

It's pretty incredible.

The Emperor's tomb is right
beneath my feet.

He was buried at 50 metres below
the surface of this mound.

And the Chinese government
has decided to protect it further

by denying access to the public.

It's like being on top of
Tutankhamun's tomb,

but not being able to get inside,

maybe for good reason,

nobody really knows what's in there.

Even from the top of
the overgrown tomb

there's only one way to see
the surrounding site...

OK.

Wow! Look at that.

Nobody's ever been allowed
to fly here.

This is unprecedented access.

The nearby hills are studded with
top secret military instillations

and it's taken us months of
negotiating with the Chinese Army

to get permission to do this.

But, once in the air,
it's clear it was worth the effort.

Look at that. It just keeps on
going. It just expands.

The exterior walls of
the mound are over there.

At 100 square kilometres, this is
the biggest burial site on Earth.

200 times bigger than
Egypt's Valley of the Kings.

Can you imagine building this for
yourself for your afterlife?

And that's just what's visible
on the surface.

Beneath these fields, archaeologists
have uncovered a vast buried world

of more than 600 pits
and structures,

each one a gold mine of
archaeological riches.

Almost every day there are new
discoveries,

and we have unprecedented
access to them.

Anyone could potentially link China
to the outside world in

the 3rd century BC.

This was the
era of classical Ancient Greece,

a time it was always assumed when
China existed in total isolation.

That assumption started to crumble
because of

the first discovery they made here -

the Terracotta Army.

It's not these buildings over here.

It's the building...

It's that one, it's the one beyond.

The Terracotta Army lies 1.5km
away to the east.

Today it's one of the biggest
tourist attractions on Earth,

but few people realise this
extraordinary collection of figures

contains one of the greatest

unsolved mysteries
in China's history.

No-one has ever been able to
explain their origins.

The mystery began when all this
was farmers' fields.

And one of those fields yielded
a life-sized terracotta head.

It was 1974.

Look at that.

So what's happening here?

This is right at the beginning of
the excavation, I presume.

So that's you?

Yeah. Fantastic.

42-year-old Yuan Zhongyi

was the first archaeologist sent
here from Beijing.

What was the thing which most
surprised you?

Yuan's first week here
turned into decades.

And today I'm coming to meet
the person

who's continuing
his pioneering work,

his former assistant
Janice Xiuzhen Li.

Hi, Janice. Hi. How are you?

I'm fine. How are you? Very good.

They believe the Emperor's
Terracotta Army

is an exact copy of the real thing.

So these were going to be his army
in the afterlife?

Yeah, to protect him.

What I really notice looking around
is I think they all look different.

I can't see any two that
are the same.

Some of them have got a bit of
a belly on them,

some of them are very, very tall.

Were they all individually crafted?

They're really quite individual.

You see the moustache is different
and also the eye shape.

This stunning realism amplifies

the great mystery surrounding
these figures.

Where do they come from?

Because they're nothing like any
figure made in China before them.

Let me show you the figures made in
China before the warriors.

OK. So the figurines is
really small. OK.

It's about ten inches.

Oh, so tiny. Tiny.
Suddenly they start producing this.

Yeah, and this about two metres.
So something has changed. Yes.

These warriors are far more
sophisticated,

much bigger and much more realistic.

Yeah, much more detailed.

But were they all made in China?

Yeah.
Let me show you the stamps here.

This is the name of the artisan.

So this Terracotta Warrior is
produced locally.

The big question is -

how did Chinese craftsmen achieve
such an incredible transformation?

Like going from a stickman to
a Leonardo in a single step.

Something remarkable happened
here 2,200 years ago.

To understand quite how remarkable,

I need to put it in
a global context.

The world at the time of the
First Emperor, around 220 BC.

Over here, right on the eastern edge
of the Eurasian landmass

you've got the Chinese world,

a competing cluster of mini states
over there.

Over on the west of Eurasia you've
got Roman Empire

starting to expand over here
and you've got Greece over there.

Now what's going on artistically in
East and West is very different in

the 3rd century.

This is classic Greek art,

absolute high watermark of artistic
expression. Beautiful.

Metre and a half tall, intricately
painted, human in its look.

But over here in the Chinese world,
as Janice has showed me,

you've got that.

Just ten centimetres tall,
far more basic.

Then something changes.

In fact, everything changes,
there's a revolution.

Suddenly in 220 BC, just after that,
you get the Terracotta Warriors.

Light years ahead of what's
gone before.

It starts to look far less like
it's predecessor

and far more like what's going on in
the Western world.

Both life-size, both lifelike,
attempts at realism,

using paint and the sculpture to
reflect the realities of

the human body, the human form.

And this couldn't be more important
because it's always been assumed

that China developed in isolation.

But if that's not the case,

if the First Emperor of China
imported Western ideas

and techniques to create his
extraordinary necropolis...

Well, that forces us to completely
rewrite the history books.

If you're going to rewrite the
history books, you need evidence.

You need a lot of evidence.

And I think there is enough evidence
just with the Terracotta Warriors.

This is a theory that turns on its
head centuries of thinking about

the relationship between
China and the West.

It can't just be based on
one statue.

It just seems that there are so many

mysteries associated with
this place. It's phenomenal.

It just feels as though there's an
awful lot more to be discovered.

There is a history, Chinese history,
so maybe there's a lot to

the stories that were
written in this historical text.

It's amazing to have those texts as
well. I mean, how fantastic.

OK. This is it.
It's called the Shiji.

We've got 20 pages of a text that
was written over 100 years later

by the first Chinese historian
called Sima Qian.

He talks about the First Emperor's
tomb, but he doesn't even mention

the Terracotta Warriors,
they don't even get a mention.

What is now one of the most
important sites on Earth

doesn't even get a mention in this.

And, unfortunately, he doesn't
mention foreigners

or people beyond Central Asia. Wow.
So there are gaps in the history.

There's big gaps in the history.

So we're relying on you guys.

Well, you know,
the extent of this place is huge.

So what we're looking at here is
the main burial mound.

And the Terracotta Warriors are
pretty far off to the east side of

the entire burial complex.

And, you know, what I think is the
interesting question is -

is there a road network that
extends from this?

Do you think you could ever find

connections with points
further west?

It's hard to say because it's going
to go, obviously,

the roads meander
and turn over time,

but I think what's exciting is if we

can start to use
different technologies

and maybe we can start to see
the traces

of where these roads were going

from this one very important
place, obviously.

I'm really interested to know if
there's anything else here

in terms of the archaeology, in
terms of the material culture

that could point to a Western
influence or a Western connection.

Or indeed any evidence of
Westerners having been here.

The assumption, I think, is that
this whole site was built

in ten years or so, is that right?
Very fast, yeah.

And so it seems like the evolution
of the material

and the types of artistry that was
created over time

is pretty remarkable from
the beginning to the end.

How it could just spring into being
with no tradition of it at all.

So far our only evidence lies in the
Terracotta Warriors themselves.

If they were created with some kind
of outside influence,

can we find traces of it in
the way they were made?

To find out, Alice and I are going
to take a pottery lesson.

We found an instructor,

Mr Han, who runs a factory
producing replica warriors.

He's also studied how the originals
were made over 2,000 years ago.

What do we do with this?
Are we building it up?

Apparently the bodies are not
sculpted

but made with the kind of coil pot
technique

most of us have tried at school.

Looking at the ranks of
the Terracotta Soldiers,

it's clear their bodies are
variations on standard shapes,

with arms, legs and torsos

made up of a series of clay
cylinders joined together.

Oh, we're building a house,
are we? OK.

And I suppose, really,
when it comes down to it,

and I know this is an unusual type
of pot,

but it really is just a big coil
pot, isn't it?

What gives each warrior its sense of
real distinct character is

the head and the face.

And again, it's all about ease of
production. The mould, we've got it.

This makes more sense.
Moulding makes sense to me.

Right. One, two, three.

Yes! This is art.

In fact, making a head turns out to
be even easier than the body.

And it seems anyone with a bit of
practice

could produce heads pretty quickly
using this moulding technique.

Oh! Look at that.

Look at that. That's fantastic.

His nose needs
a little bit of work there.

There's something really
magical about putting

a lump of clay into a mould like
that

and then suddenly what you've got is
a face looking back at you.

Brilliant.

The key to this is the original head
from which the mould was made.

Someone had to sculpt that head

using techniques that were
unheard of in China.

This is our first clear sign of an
outside influence.

From the maker's marks on the
original warriors,

they've identified just five
separate workshops making

the entire Terracotta Army.

So the mass production of thousand
of warriors could have been based

on a combination of skilled
Chinese potters

guided by a small team of outside
instructors.

Is it possible those instructors
came from the West?

A few miles from the Emperor's
mausoleum

lies his ancient capital city Xi'an.

It's really only in the
last 20 years

that China has opened up to the
Western world.

I mean, it's not hard to imagine how
extraordinary it would have been

for Westerners to find themselves
here in the 3rd century BC.

In a totally alien culture
on the other side of the world.

If that is what happened,

it took someone of extraordinary
vision to make it happen.

China's First Emperor -
Qin Shi Huangdi.

This was a revolutionary ruler

who transcended all the
boundaries of his age.

In 221 BC, at the age of 40,
he put an end to 250 years of war,

conquering six neighbouring states

and forging the civilisation we
know today as China.

This was the ancient foundation
of the modern superpower.

The Emperor dreamt that his nation
would last forever

and he wanted to stamp his mark
on it.

Yet if he recruited Westerners to
help him create his mausoleum,

bringing them here could have been
one of

the greatest challenges of
his reign.

There is no history of an
established route

in 3rd century BC connecting
China with the West.

The Silk Road is not mentioned by
name for centuries.

So did the Emperor open this world
famous highway long before

the history books acknowledge?

Our only contemporary reference does
suggest road building was one of

the Emperor's major priorities.

Now according to the Shiji,
in 220 BC,

after a tour of inspection over
terrible bumpy roads,

the First Emperor ordered the
construction of a series of

speedways radiating
out from the capital.

But is there any trace of
that network?

The mausoleum's archaeology team
has invited Albert to see

a new excavation very close to
the Emperor's tomb.

THEY SPEAK IN OWN LANGUAGE

Lead archaeologist Zhang Weixing

believes they've uncovered an
ancient road.

Peel this tarp back.

At first sight it looks narrow for
an imperial highway.

So when I first came in here

I thought that they were
excavating the length of the road.

I mean,
it looks about the size of a road.

But what we're seeing from the
tracks is that actually

the road is going this way.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, you really get a
sense of it here.

MAN SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

Zhang believes this is
the cross section

of a vast multi-lane highway

built to bring men and
materials to the Emperor's tomb.

Towards the mausoleum?

OK, so this was part of the,
I guess,

the construction process, you know.

Wow! Look at that.

When you look at the size of that
mound,

it must have been a lot of material
that was moved

to build basically a mountain.

These are the tracks of carts that
have pressed down in the earth

since Qing dynasty,
over 2,000 years ago.

The huge width of this highway shows
the Chinese were masters of

road engineering on a vast scale,

capable of building the national
network described in the Shiji.

Perhaps reaching beyond
China itself.

We need to find that
hidden network...

..which means Albert will need the
latest aerial sensing technology.

My own investigation, meanwhile,
is gathering pace.

The Terracotta Army gave us

the first traces
of possible Western input.

But I've just come across
a paper written by a German academic

describing a set of terracotta
figures whose body show

unmistakable signs of
a Western hand.

No-one knows what these figures
are meant to be,

the Chinese call them the Acrobats.

They were discovered in a small pit
very close to the Emperor's tomb

where I've arranged to meet
Dr Lukas Nickel.

Ah, Lukas, hi.

Dan, nice seeing you.

It's very good to be here.
I've read your paper.

Have a look at this one.

Here we have a figure with
a semi-naked body.

Just this little piece of
cloth around his hip

and what we see is a building
of a body.

If we look at the arms, we have
musculature, we have an idea,

an understanding of the build.

Also big muscles over the kneecap.
If you remember,

the Terracotta Warriors are
basically standing that way.

It looks like a torso with arms
and legs just stuck in,

but there's no attempt to build
a proper working human body.

There are believed to be more
than 50 of these acrobats

and the conservation team is still
trying to piece them together

from thousands of fragments.

Unlike the Terracotta Warriors,
they're not made to a template.

Each one appears to be individually
sculpted by an experienced artist.

This is now a totally different
quality of sculpture.

They want to show an anatomically
correct movement

in a quite acceptable, believable
way he puts one foot in front,

the other one behind, and you see
that the whole body,

relax the knees,

the hip and the upper part of the
body are moving along.

Your first impression,
that is classically Greek.

Yes, absolutely,
no question about that.

It's something we only find
in Greece.

Only the Greeks would do that.

The people who made this had an
understand of how Greeks

would make sculptures.
That is extremely surprising.

To show the human body in this kind
of convincing, lifelike stance,

that is extremely complicated.

That is something we know in Greece

that had taken centuries to
learn this.

Suddenly at the end of the 3rd
century BC in China we get that,

and that is very close to
a Greek idea.

So you're seriously suggesting that
that statue might have been sculpted

by a Greek sculptor who
came all the way out here

and made it for the Emperor?

Well, I imagine a Greek sculptor

may have come here to train
the locals.

It's just... I mean, that's amazing.

This feels like a huge breakthrough.

Possible evidence of Western
instructors

working in China 2,200 years ago,

perhaps the same people who helped
to create the Terracotta Army.

But how did the Emperor know
where to find them?

How did they get here?

At the end of the 4th century BC,

Alexander the Great bursts out of
Greece here, out of Macedon,

and conquers a huge empire in Asia.

So Alexander the Great's empire
reaches it's high watermark

around about the time of his death,
323 BC.

Then in...

Well, from 220 BC onwards another
young, charismatic leader,

Qin Shi Huangdi,

creates the beginnings of modern
China, unifying China.

Now...did this first emperor of
China take advantage of the narrow

gap that now existed between the
Greek world and his Chinese world

to import ideas, techniques,
materials, maybe even people?

Suddenly China doesn't seem
so isolated.

Albert is already planning his
search for the road

that might have bridged that gap.

That's about a mile, right?
So a mile from here to here.

While Alice is looking for the human
evidence of foreigners

who might have come here.

So far they've found more
than 600 separate pits

in this vast mausoleum complex.

And one of things they've discovered
is that the Emperor didn't just take

terracotta figures to
the next world.

Real people were sacrificed
to go with him.

This skull is from one
of 99 shallow graves

just north of the Emperor's tomb.

Suggesting their occupants were very
close to the Emperor himself.

The first revelation is that this
skull, like all the others...

..belonged to a young woman.

And Alice has found a passage
in the Shiji

that could explain their
mass burial.

"Of the women in the harem of
the former ruler

"it would be unfitting to have those
who bore no sons sent elsewhere.

"All were accordingly
ordered to accompany the dead man

"which resulted in the death of many
women."

If this skull belonged to one
of those women,

she was sacrificed for failing to
give the Emperor a son.

Alice is going to see if she can
find out more about this girl's life

as well as her untimely death
from lead archaeologist Mr Zhu.

So you think these bones could
possibly be

the female consorts of the Emperor,
the concubines?

They also have poignant evidence
of how she lived.

These pearls are absolutely
beautiful.

But we are looking at the jewellery
that was worn by a woman

who lived in the 3rd century BC,
a woman who during life

enjoyed a special position at
court and high status.

But she was killed, potentially
brutally killed,

and her only crime was to have been
a concubine of

the First Emperor of China.

This tragic story may yet have
another twist.

Before China was unified,
local rulers used concubines

to forge alliances with neighbouring
states through marriage.

It's quite possible the first
Emperor took that idea beyond

China's borders for the first time
and brought in foreign concubines.

The mausoleum is beginning
a DNA study to try and trace

the girl's origins.

The problem is, unlocking those
secrets could take many months.

Alice's search for Westerners
in China continues.

Albert is ready to start his aerial
search for

the Emperor's road network.

What we want to do is create
a systematic path. So this is...

They're staying close to the tomb

where they already know that
there was road construction.

It's open field. Shall we try it?

Albert has borrowed a prototype
super sensitive infrared camera.

This is the first time it's ever
been used in aerial archaeology.

There we are, at the very edge.

And we're looking for
a change in the temperature.

The blue area is where it's
a little bit colder.

The red area is where it's
a little bit warmer.

And we're talking very subtle
amounts here.

The camera's able to pick up the
faintest traces left deep in

the earth by centuries of
human disturbance.

Albert adds this to
satellite imagery

creating a comprehensive deep time
picture of the site.

THEY SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE

And right away there is something
that Zhang hasn't seen before.

MAN SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

MAN SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

A diagonal line on the landscape.
It just doesn't seem to belong.

MAN SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

So you're saying that if this is
man-made, then it's a game changer?

Really exciting.

THEY SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE

Could this be the first sign of
the road network?

The only way to know is to get out
into the field

and do a ground survey

to make sure that what Albert's
seen from above

is nothing obviously modern like
a sewer pipe or gas line.

All right.

Let's go take a look.

This is really cool.

It's clearly not a pipeline.

In fact, it doesn't seem to have any
obvious use, at least not any more.

OK. Where we're standing right
now is right here.

And what I didn't know until just
this moment was what this was.

But now I'm standing here and what
it is is this massive trench

over six feet below the
surface of the rest of these farms

with no real explanation
for its existence.

There's no reason to have this
huge trench here,

there's no river here,
there's nothing else.

But, and if I'm right, then what I'm
standing on right here could be

one of the roads of the network
of roads built by the First Emperor.

It's a breakthrough,
but in the wrong direction.

The new line goes north-east
towards the interior of China.

We need something heading
north-west.

So it's back to the aerial data.

There's this faint signature of some
kind of an anomaly

that's running north-west.

You see that right there?

It looks like it's meeting right at
the same point and it looks like

it's the exact same feature
that we just ground trooped.

What looks like to be
another road here.

And they're literally radiating out.

Our big question is - where would
the western road be going to?

And how far?

The rest of that ancient road is
buried under the modern landscape,

but there is a natural line it could
have followed 2,000 years ago

along the Wei River valley.

And there is a possible destination
described in the Shiji.

The most western extent of
the empire at the time

was this town called Lintao.

The Shiji describes it as,
"A garrison town."

It was part of this story of
the Great Wall.

The First Emperor created the first
Great Wall of China.

Over 5,000km long,

the wall's starting point and base
of construction was at Lintao.

It must have been a huge project.

There's builders there,
there's soldiers there,

communication was key and the roads
that this person built,

the First Emperor, they were the key
to that communication.

OK.

Albert, how's it going?

'Hey, Dan.'
What have you found?

I'm actually seeing around
the First Emperor's tomb site

a road going west.

Really?! Really?!

Farthest it would go that
we would know of so far

would be this town of Lintao.

'The most western extent of
the entire empire.'

That is very interesting
information. Congratulations.

If there was a road going from
here as far as Lintao,

can we find any historic reference
connecting Lintao to the West?

What's great is there is actually
another source that we've got.

And it's not often talked about,
but it was just shown to me

the other day and it's
absolutely fascinating.

It says, "In the 26th year of the
Emperor," which is about 220 BC,

in Lintao, it said, "Daren
appeared," that's tall men.

I love that description.

Tall men.
They didn't have a word for statue.

But, this is the best bit,
"All dressed in foreign robes."

How interesting. Statues.

That is what would become known as
the Silk Route through that.

Lintao is perfectly placed.
That makes a lot of sense.

And there's more written about
these Lintao statues.

Apparently the Emperor had giant
copies made in bronze

to adorn his palace in Xi'an.

It says,

"Weapons from all over the empire
were confiscated and melted down

"to be used in casting bells, bell
stands and 12 men made of metal."

He's melting down all of those
weapons and creating these statues

as a symbol of his power
over that empire.

It's straight out the playbook of
the great conquerors of

the Mediterranean -

the Alexanders, the Ramesses,

erecting massive statues to
reinforce their own might,

dominance, legitimacy.

Sadly there are no traces left of
the Emperor's original bronze
statues.

But the story suggests he wanted the
kudos of exotic foreign culture.

And we may have discovered
the origins of the sculptures

who brought that culture to China

thanks to a new discovery made by
Dr Lukas Nickel.

Ever seen something comparable?
That looks very familiar.

What about this one?
That is very similar to the stuff

we're seeing here
at the Terracotta Army. Absolutely.

This idea of realism
and this idea to try to make

a believable figure, that is totally
comparable to what we see in China.

That is a sculpture
made in Afghanistan,

where the Greeks established
a lot of cities at this time.

What we have here, that's a local
ruler who apparently employed

Greek craftsmen to make
sculptures for his palace.

These Greek craftsmen had the idea,
well, why not even moving

further east to the Chinese,
of which we know that they're
extremely rich.

And that's going on
in what is now Afghanistan?

I mean, that's not very,
very far from here, really.

It's about the same distance
to Athens as it is
to the Chinese capital of Xi'an.

Albert believes he's found the start
of the Emperor's Road network...

and his hunch that that network
could go much further west

seems to be correct.

Albert, how are you doing?

Have you seen
some good stuff as well?

Oh, yeah. Hm. Some fun stuff.

Lukas just showed me some
extraordinary images of art

from Afghanistan on the borders
of modern day China,

and on what would become known as
the Silk Road. Looks quite familiar.

Looks quite familiar?
I mean, we're not talking about
people coming from Athens,

we're talking from Afghanistan,
Tajikistan here.

Basically, what we're saying is
very similar art styles,

very similar timeframe

and a bunch of connection points
between these two.

Bang! East and West.

INDISTINCT

We know the Emperor
has Western-style statues
created for his capital.

We think there were itinerant
Greek sculptors moving east

to a city in what is now
Afghanistan.

And it seems there was
probably a road linking Xi'an
at least as far as Lintao.

So a picture is emerging
of a cultural highway

between West and East,
a prototype Silk Road.

But the picture is not yet complete.

Hello?
HORN BLARES

Oh, hi, Alice.
How are you doing?

We've got archaeology, we've got
a culture of art techniques of art -

what we don't have is any people.
You're the people person.

It would be nice
to see some evidence.

I'm headed now to the
Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology.

I'm hoping I'm going to see some of
the mausoleum workers' bones.

I've talked to the archaeologists
and they've hinted that there

might be some kind of
Western connection there,

so I'm really intrigued
to have a look at this.

The remains Alice is going to see
were found several kilometres
east of the Terracotta Army.

They're believed to be tomb workers
because they were buried in
a mass grave at the same period,

close to the remains
of a pottery kiln.

There's one skull in particular
that I'm really intrigued
to have a look at,

because it might offer
some kind of connection
to people outside of China.

The Shaanxi Institute is the central
depositary for all human remains
found in the Emperor's mausoleum.

Because of their sacred
and sensitive nature,

those remains are closely guarded
and access rarely granted.

According to the Shiji,
the Emperor brought 700,000 men

from all across China and possibly
beyond to build his mausoleum -

more than 20 times the number who
built Egypt's Great Pyramid at Giza.

And Professor Sun
has evidence that the human cost
was correspondingly high.

Gosh. So do you think this would
have gone round the neck? Yeah.

Of these individuals.
So they're hardly willing workers.

Would you consider them
to be slaves? Criminal.

Criminals? Yeah.

Criminals who were then conscripted
to come and work on the tomb. Yeah.

And presumably executed?
I mean, these are young men.

We presume this was not
a natural death that they suffered.

Among the mass victims of the
Emperor's brutal forced labour,

there is one individual,
according to Professor Sun,

whose features don't look Chinese.

HE SPEAKS IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE

It is quite intriguing
to look at him.

This doesn't really look like
a typically East Asian skull.

I'm looking for features
which might be typical

of an East Asian skull,
and they're not there.

Instead, this skull has got
quite prominent nasal bones,

and its cheekbones are different
as well.

They're not the flattened cheekbones
that I would expect to see.

I think it would be fantastic
if we could do

a bit of further analysis
on this skull.

There's a tantalising possibility
we could be looking at an outsider,

perhaps from beyond
China's western border.

A simple DNA test would confirm it,

but they won't let Alice
take a sample.

Precise cranial measurements
are the only other option.

What would be great is if
we could reconstruct the face

of this young man, so that we can
see what he would have looked like
in life.

Reconstructing the face involves
weeks of digital recreation,

building muscle groups onto
a computer model of the skull.

But the real scientific data
lies in the skull itself.

Alice is using
a global database of skull types,

which may help pin down the origins
of our tomb worker.

Albert logs on
to witness the long-awaited reveal,

and Alice and I get ready to greet
our worker face-to-face.

Here we go.

Here it is! The moment of truth.

I can't wait to see what this
reconstruction looks like.

There we go. Interesting!

Oh, wow! Oh!

OK. Polystyrene sticking to him.

Wow!

Well,
he does look incredibly realistic.

What do you think, Albert?

Camera's coming in
for extreme close-up.

The thing that sends little tingles
up my spine is that this may be

the closest we get to actually
being in that moment in that time.

You know, this is one of the guys
who built that entire tomb!

It's quite incredible, isn't it,
to look at this reconstruction,

having seen the skull in China,

this is our best guess at
what this man looked like in life.

My analysis of the skull
was quite interesting.

I took lots of measurements
of the skull when we were

out in China and came out
as very definitely not Western.

He's not from the West. Um, um, um,
um... Doesn't help us, does it?

It's not the smoking gun.
Tantalising.

It would have been very nice
to find a ginger bloke
in the Tomb of the First Emperor.

But we'd have been incredibly lucky,
I suppose, to find the one skeleton

amongst the tens of thousands
that must be lying around there.

The data puts our man outside
mainland China, but in a vast area -

from Afghanistan
to the Pacific Islands.

Plausible evidence that there may
have been outsiders working

on the tomb, and it supports
the controversial theory

that the First Emperor could have
imported foreigners
and foreign ideas.

There are always new discoveries
coming out of this
vast mausoleum site...

..and one of them
has thrown us a new line of inquiry.

Not in terracotta, but in bronze.

And not of human figures,
but animals.

46 bronze water birds were found in
a pit north of the Emperor's Tomb,

all beautifully arranged as though
feeding at an ornamental pond.

It's a type of bronze sculpture that
appeared in China almost overnight.

Nothing like it had been seen here
before the First Emperor.

It's such a beautiful piece
of sculpture.

And it's not just
a beautiful object.

It might be the techniques
for making it came from the West.

The technique is called
direct lost-wax,

and its origins can be traced back
to the Mediterranean
5,000 years ago.

Before I can talk
to the researcher

who has the key piece of evidence,

I'm told I need to see
the basic process

to understand
quite how complex it is.

As the name suggests,

they start with a design
carved out of wax, then go through

a series of processes
to replace that wax with bronze.

So this is a sort of mould
that gets created around the wax,

and it's this mould that will give
the shape to the bronze. So clever!

Lost-wax took centuries
to perfect in the West,

and watching it today,
I can understand why!

So this is the big moment.
It's all about to be put together.

This is their action now.

Wow! Molten bronze.

It's fascinating to watch,
but how good are the results?

Ooh! Look at that!

The bronze has taken the form of
that wax absolutely perfectly.

So, they're going to cut these off,

stick a head on it and you've got
a wonderful bird fit for an emperor.

Ah! Hot!

It's clear this process is too
complex to stumble on by accident,

but did someone bring a version
of it to China 2,000 years ago?

According to Dr Shao Anding,

there is telltale evidence
of the direct lost-wax technique.

It's hidden inside this swan's
graceful, delicate neck.

A reinforced structural
core of clay.

This is evidence, a core like that,
isn't it? Yeah.

So if you want to create these
very natural shapes, you need like

a reinforcing rod running through it
to give it that shape. Yeah.

If you don't have this core rod...
Just snap off.

Yeah, yeah. Shao only discovered the
core rod when he X-rayed the swan.

Oh! There you go. Is that the rod?
Yes, yes. That's very clear. Yes.

That's the reinforcing rod
on an X-ray.

It hadn't been seen
in Chinese bronze before.

We see similar
in Egypt bronze sculpture.

In Egypt? Yes.

Wow. I can show you.
No! Look at that!

Yes. That's uncanny.
It's got the reinforcing rod there.

Yes, yes, yeah.
It's the same techniques.

So you're saying this technique
was normal in the Mediterranean

and never been seen before in China?

Yeah. We haven't seen it.

These techniques are perfect,

so it's influenced
or borrowed from the West.

Wow.

That's pretty good evidence!

We now have strong evidence
of Western metal workers
in China in the third century BC.

Added to the evidence
of Greek trained sculptors,

it suggests there was a community of
workers brought here by the Emperor.

But unlike terracotta,
when it came to bronze,

the Chinese took imported technology
to a whole new level.

In the heart of the mausoleum
is a gallery showcasing the genius
of the Emperor's bronze workers.

Objects like these.

Two half-size replicas of Imperial
carriages made entirely of bronze.

I don't think
I've ever seen anything

so beautiful of this antiquity.

Over 2,000 years
this remained underground.

So lifelike, you can feel
the energy in those horses.

I love the fact that it's just
waiting, key in the ignition,

ready for the Emperor to rise in
the afterlife, take his position

and be taken off to visit
his new underground kingdom.

We're getting a clearer and clearer
picture of how the Emperor

used Western techniques
to enhance his newly unified empire.

And creating the physical
infrastructure to connect to
communities far beyond his borders.

But we haven't yet found
evidence of Western people.

However, Alice has heard about a new
study of human remains from around
the time of the FirstEmperor,

and she's meeting its author,
geneticist Josh Xu Zhi.

Hello, Alice. Hello, Josh! Nice to
meet you. Really nice to meet you.

Have a seat. Thank you.

They had a European
specific mitochondria DNA.

A U... Oh, yeah.

Most of them are U.

So, U on my map here is something
which is much more common,

much more frequent in Europe,
definitely European looking,

so this is really intriguing.

This must be evidence at some point,
then,

of people with European
mitochondrial DNA coming into Asia.

It looks like some Western, erm,

Europeans travelled there and they
settled down and they died there.

It does make you wonder if this is
evidence of people moving

along a kind of proto Silk Route.
Yes.

This DNA evidence was found here
en route to China,

and within its current border.

It's news Alice needs to share.

So I just met with Josh,
who was the first author

on this fantastic paper
from Xinjiang Province.

Right, where the Silk Road is,
basically. Yes. OK.

Right over in the West of China,
and there they found a real mixture.

European mitochondria DNA lineages
mixed up with East Asian lineages.

This goes back to the time
of the whole great conquests.

Yeah, yeah, yeah,
and a real mixture of people.

I would think that there has been an
inspiration across the two worlds

that you haven't
fully accounted for.

We began our journey with a simple
question - what could explain
the Terracotta Army?

There was one explanation
that was Earth-shattering
in its implications.

A direct link with the Western world
centuries before
it was thought possible.

This is the Western end
of that connection -

the British Museum's collection
of classical Greek sculpture.

Is it possible that people that
learned the skills

that created these masterpieces
helped to forge the legacy

of the First Emperor of China?
The experts certainly think so.

It's a possibility. They really have
some other culture stimulation.

This understanding of sculpture
was absolutely extraordinary.

I believe Greek sculpture makers
moved all the way

to the Chinese capital and sold
their trades to the First Emperor.

And not just in terracotta.

I'd say it is influenced
or borrowed directly from the West.

With evidence of an ancient
road network that could have
brought Westerners to China,

and DNA evidence of Europeans
living on China's doorstep.

There's lots of evidence
to show they really have

communications
between the East and the West.

I think this story rewrites
the history of the birth of China,

today one of the most
powerful nations on Earth.

And it totally revolutionises
our understanding of relations

between East and West
2,000 years ago.

But perhaps most importantly of all,
it provides vital context

that deepens and enriches our
relationships in the present day.