Page 382 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

thigh, holds the arm of the crossbow, while his
right hand is positioned near the bow's trigger —
perhaps in the act of shooting, or, alternatively,
awaiting a command. 2
The posture of this kneeling archer, based on
an organic interplay of planes, eschews the strict
frontal stance of most of the standing figures. The
most striking and significant stylistic feature of
Qin sculptures lies in the linking of a conceptually
conceived human form with details of painstaking
visual accuracy. There is no precedent in Chinese
art for this massive deployment of verisimilitude.
Here, the construction of the jacket, composed of
lamellae joined by thongs and rivets, mimetically
depicts lacquered leather armor. Details of the
archer's coiffure — three braids plaited into a
chignon — as well as the texture of the sole of
his shoe and the folds on his left sleeve and collar,
are transcribed into plastic form. The realism ex-
tends to such details as the bending of the right
foot on which the weight of the body rests, the
texture of the sole, and the folds on the inner side
of the left sleeve.
More than five hundred figures from the three
pits bear stamped or incised characters. While most
are numerical symbols, probably associated with
the assignment of figures into "groups," characters
on approximately eighty-five of the figures have
been identified as signatures of master potters,
who would have directed teams composed of
3
approximately ten workers. LK
1 Excavated in 1997; unreported.
2 Wang (19943, 220 - 223) discussing a similar figure from
Pit 2, raises several interpretations of the archer's stance.
3 The inscriptions are described in Shaanxi 1988!},
1:194 - 207, figs. 112 -119.

381 | T E R R A - C O T T A ARMY , LINTONC