Making Weapons for the Terracotta Army Marcos Martinón-Torres * , Xiuzhen Janice Li *† , Andrew Bevan * , Yin Xia † , Zhao Kun † and Thilo Rehren * Qin Shihuang (259–210 BC) is one of the most famous and controversial figures in Chinese history. Widely known as ‘the First Emperor’, he forcibly unified China for the first time, prosecuted intellectuals and oppo- nents, abolished feudalism, and standard- ised philosophy, script, coinage and law. The enormous mausoleum complex he commis- sioned for himself in Xi’an, Shaanxi, remains an unequalled material representation of his world, providing an almost inexhaustible source of information about the powerful political and symbolic system that was built up around his personality. Today, the com- plex is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and attracts over four million visitors a year, in addition to contributing to major travelling museum exhibitions across the globe. The mausoleum complex covers an area of over 50 square kilometres. Alongside the colossal main pyramid structure underneath which the Emperor is said to be buried, archaeological research in the last four dec- ades has unveiled a wealth of other instal- lations that were built to provide an ideal environment for the ruler’s afterlife. There are various pits with life-sized servants, acro- bats and musicians; water channels with delicate bronze birds; bronze carriages fitted with gold and silver implements and lavishly decorated with polychrome pigments – and surely, many more finds yet to be discovered (Fig. 1). The Terracotta Army, however, since its discovery in the 1970s, has become the very emblem of the site – an unarguable manifestation of the substantial military power, lavish wealth and artistic achievement of the Qin Empire. Stationed in three pits to the east of his tomb, the Terracotta Warriors are supposed to have been placed there to host and protect the Emperor from his many enemies in his afterlife. So far, c.2,000 indi- Archaeology International No. 13/14, 2009-2011, 65-75 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/ai.1316 * UCL Institute of Archaeology, London WC1H 0PY, United Kingdom m.martinon-torres@ucl.ac.uk † Museum of Emperor Qin Shihuang’s Mausoleum, Xi’an, 710600, China The Terracotta Army of the First Emperor of China is one of the most emblematic archaeological sites in the world. Many questions remain about the logistics of technology, standardisation and labour organisation behind the creation of such a colossal construction in just a few decades over 2,000 years ago. An ongoing research project co-ordinated between the UCL Institute of Archaeology and the Museum of Emperor Qin Shihuang’s Mausoleum is beginning to address some of these questions. This paper outlines some results of the typological, metric, micro- scopic, chemical and spatial analyses of the 40,000 bronze weapons recovered with the Terracotta Warriors. Thanks to a holistic approach developed specifcally for this project, it is possible to reveal remarkable aspects of the organisation of the Qin workforce in production cells, of the standardisation, efciency and quality-control procedures employed, and of the sophisticated technical knowledge of the weapon-makers.