From my Hide: Interesting facts emerge from ancient Chinese funerary art

Some interesting news has crossed my desk. Chinese archaeologists are suggesting that there was contact between China and the West, specifically Greece, 1 500 years before Marco Polo arrived in China in the 13th century. They are saying that the famous tomb of the so-called First Emperor at Xian in north west China, where there are the 8 000 terracotta warriors, indicates that Greek artisans may well have been there to inspire and train local workers. The tomb dates from the third century BC.

One study shows that European DNA has been found in archaeological sites in far western China, suggesting that Europeans, probably Greeks, were in the area at the time of the First Emperor or even before. The terracotta warriors were a completely new concept for the Chinese 2 300 years ago, but similar statues were known among the ancient Greeks, including Alexander the Great, who managed to reach as far as 50km east of Amritsar, capital of the Indian Punjab. It was here that his army, having marched and fought all the way from Macedonia said, enough is enough, and forced Alexander to turn westwards and homewards, that was in 327BC.*

We have covered this territory, mostly in local buses, from New Delhi to Amritsar, then across Pakistan to the Khyber Pass and into Afghanistan, then on and into Iran, and finally Turkey, ending up in Istanbul. We crossed the Indus (in Pakistan) at night, in a rickety, cramped, much-decorated, Pakistani bus, some 2 300 years after Alexander and his army reportedly crossed it on inflated goatskins. How interesting to think that some Greeks soldiers may have gone AWOL and kept moving eastwards and eventually into China. Another interesting point is China’s recently announced new Belt and Road Initiative; a proposed international trade route between China and Europe, a modern Silk Road, which once linked China with the Mediterranean from 130BC.

And a very different angle on China. My wife bought a packet of wet wipes (for want of a better term) the other day to keep in the car. As you know, I like to read the small print on things and to our astonishment the wet wipes were made in China. I’ve pointed out before that many of the canned goods in our supermarkets come from China, and recent discoveries were bottled asparagus and tinned smoked mussels. An ordinary light bulb popped the other night and I replaced it with another, made in China, naturally. We bought a packet of frozen calamari from our favourite fishmonger the other day, produced where? China, of course. But our best so far was an Afrikaans Christmas card we received, yep, made in China. But we’re not alone. In 2016 England celebrated the Queen’s 90th birthday and my cousins in London sent us a tea cloth commemorating the event, and for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee they sent us red and white flags of St George and suitable bunting, and yep again, all made in China. The Chinese have obviously been good businessmen for a very long time.

*The Digging Stick: journal of the South African Archaeological Society.

 

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