Netflix’s new hit doc reveals harmful tomb of China’s first emperor

Netflix viewers can’t get enough of the necropolis of China‘s first emperor — though archeologists have long worried about the dangers of opening his still-sealed tomb.

Toxic liquid mercury rivers, built as a miniature map of the emperor’s kingdom, are just one of the many potential risks to opening this inner-most sanctum of the emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s tomb.

Experts are also worried about exposing the tomb’s sealed army of clay-sculpted ‘terracotta warriors’ to the open air, which has instantly peeled and evaporated the paint off similar sculptures buried close to the emperor’s over 2,200-year-old tomb.

Researchers have even turned to an exotic x-ray-like scanning technique, ‘muon tomography,’ exploiting cosmic rays from space to peer into the sealed burial site.

But naturally, there’s also rumors of a curse on the tomb, and certainly the seven local villagers who unearthed the first of Qin Shi Huangdi’s nearly 8,000 buried clay warriors in 1974 paid a high price for their discovery. 

‘Mysteries of the Terracotta Warriors’ pulled in a reported 6.8 million hours viewed, climbing this week to Top 4th spot on the streamer’s ‘Most Watched’ list since the one hour and 17 minute documentary debuted on Netflix June 12.

The smash doc, from British director James Tovell, explores the life, death and archeological legacy of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang (259–210 BCE), who succeeded in conquering and unifying the whole of China in 221 BCE. 

Qin Shi Huang created an empire that lasted for some two millennia. 

And his other achievements included starting construction on the Great Wall of China, establishing a nationwide road network and standardizing writing and units.

But the discovery of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s clay soldiers — sculpted to serve as his army in the afterlife — proved to be less of a success for the seven men who uncovered the first known of Qin’s terracotta warriors.

These villagers in a farming community near the city of Xi’an found a warrior’s clay head while digging a new well amid a devastating 1974 drought. 

A frenzy followed from the moment this pottery-like clay head, and the several bronze arrowheads unearthed with it, were first made public.

Soon, the village’s farmland was seized by the government for its archeological and historic value.

And in time, homes were demolished to make way for museum exhibit halls and tourist shops.

Three of these seven farmers died under tragic and terrible circumstances. 

Then 60-year-old Wang Puzhi hung himself with a rope in 1997 after facing insurmountable medical bills to treat his illnesses.

Another two farmers died in their early 50s, Yang Wenhai and Yang Yanxin, equally penniless and unable to pay for their own healthcare.

The rest lived on to earn less than a few dollars a day for years signing books for tourists at the official souvenir shops for the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor.

One of those surviving farmers, Yang Zhifa, was so disgusted with his treatment that he did not go see the restored army of sculptures until 1995, so he told China Daily.

While discovery of the tomb remains one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century, efforts to delve deeper into the tomb have met troubling obstacles. 

Testing of the soil around the site has revealed mercury traces 100 times higher than normal, lending credence to the myth that Qin had artisan-made rivers and lakes teeming with the element constructed for his tomb as part of a giant map of China.

‘Every time we unearth anything there will be a lot of risk assessment,’ Ming Tak Ted Hui, an associate professor of Classical Chinese and Medieval China at Oxford University, told DailyMail.com earlier this June.

‘But if we look at the trend I can say that it seems there are more possibilities for us actually to do that,’ according to the researcher, who appears in the new Netflix doc.

He added that while better technology is making it easier for researchers to dig with caution, the tombs in Xi’an that may include one of the emperor’s heirs, Prince Gao, may have the additional challenge of traps.

The existence of these traps were laid out in the work of ancient historian Sima Qian, who wrote around 85 BC.

According to Sima Qian (145–86 BCE), the Han dynasty’s official historian, the emperor’s necropolis complex contained ‘palaces and scenic towers for a hundred officials’ all carefully protected.

Qin’s underground tomb itself ‘was filled with rare artefacts and wonderful treasure,’ this Han historian wrote, and to safeguard those treasures, ‘craftsmen were ordered to make crossbows and arrows primed to shoot at anyone who enters the tomb.’ 

Associate Professor Ming Tak Ted Hui at Oxford University said he’s confident that archeologists will one day broach the innermost secrets of the tomb, which he is happy to see getting wider interest thanks to the Netflix original.

‘At a time when we are seriously doubtful about the truth’, the ‘heroes’ of this story, he says, are the people who have given their lives in the present to better understanding the past.

‘There are common interests or common mysteries you will find in it,’ he said. 

‘It’s not about which culture you belong to […] it’s not only a project that would attract an audience from China. It’s attracting an audience worldwide to think about what humanity as a whole has achieved.’