Old School Warriors: Qin Dynasty Infantry.

We visit ancient China in this post. I've had an interest in the Qin Dynasty warriors for some time but had never really gone and did more reading up on it.




At the Asian Civilizations Museum here in Singapore, there's a Terra-Cotta Warrior exhibit. Since I have an interest in really old military things, I took the opportunity to head on down to see the Terra-cotta statues in real life. I got more than what I bargained for. The setup wasn't terribly impressive given the size of the space - but they had one of each type of soldier, from the General standing out front, to the kneeling crossbowman. So it looked like a good opportunity to learn more. And it was.







As I walked around, the whole concept of having references for your artwork being there in front of you is reinforced deeper in me. You simply cannot beat having the real thing in front of you. I could walk around and get a 360 view of what I could never get off the internet search. I could see the leftover red pigments on the lanyard reinforcing the flexible parts of the soldier's armour (they were brightly painted in ceremonial colors as noted by archeologists). I could make out they had different footwear, the Cavalrymen wore something drastically different from the infantry. I could even make out how their tunic underneath the armour was layered. Though they may not be very accurate, I could get a genuine idea how the lamellar plates were layered and where the stiff and flexible areas of the body armour were.







I was gonna reach out and touch them (like I did years ago with a genuine Van Gogh :D) but I can't really be sure if I won't get kicked out - there were several security personnel around at all times.





Also I read on a history buff forum. I believe it was the China History Forum that the Qin army did have shields, and they probably looked very similar to the Han shields that came later. The theory made sense, technology went backwards after the Qin Dynasty collapse, not forward. So there wasn't any reason to believe something used effectively by the mighty Qin army previously would be discarded so soon after the fall of the dynasty.



It was a pretty good exhibit for its scale. I also got to test out the new fountain pen I bought for sketching pretty thoroughly. The exhibit is only 5 bucks, plus its not likely I'll head on down to Shaanxi anytime soon to see the actual dig itself and see the warriors in the thousands, so this will have to do.....for now.

More information on the exhibit at the Asian Civilizations Museum can be found >>HERE<<

More Historical Stuff

It feels great to be doing historical units with watercolors.

One more piece of Roman Auxillary Trooper



Norman Knights maile coif study - they put on a quilted padded cotton arming cap before wearing the coif.


Subsequently with better metallurgy technology the medieval armourers were able to fashion bigger plates and the Great Helm was born. Full faced protection comes at a price - no peripheral vision.



I've been doing some reading on the Terracotta Warriors too - what intruiged me was really their armour. Instead of simply being overlapped in sequence like Lamellar armour, the Qin era plates were arranged in a way that would have less of a weakness if struck directly from the front.


What's also interesting was the plated helmet that was found in a separate site. That goes to show the Qin soldiers did not go to war bare headed. The Terracotta Warriors in the mausoleum were posed in parade dress rather than full battle dress.


If you compare the Qin bodyarmour to the modern infantryman....


...the design seems timeless.


Of course our anatomy hasn't changed at all since modern humans came about, but bodyarmour has gone through a great amount of changes via available technology and a compromise between mobility and protection. So its kinda interesting we've come full circle. If you look at the internal plate structures of today's bodyarmour - with front and back plates + optional side plates, its very close in layout to the Persian Chahar-Ainé. Ideas remain the same - technology and materials change....but war....war never changes. (October can't come soon enough)