Talk:Terracotta Army

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 May 2020 and 3 July 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kevin Tian06.

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We're they influenced by Cypriot culture?

The Chinese terra cotta army is predated by the Cypriot terra cotta figures by 300-400 years. Did Cypriot culture at the time influence Chinese funeral rites or was there a third culture that influenced both? 2605:B100:122:DC9D:C828:D1BF:4B42:98ED (talk) 22:26, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Controversies

The French page includes a section on serious claims of inauthenticity, which should be included here too. Quoting part: Ainsi, dans le premier chapitre, intitulé « Le Grand Empereur et les guerriers d'argile », de son livre La Chine est un cheval et l'univers une idée, le sinologue Jean Levi déclare que cet ensemble de statues serait un fauxsituationniste ... 81.5.56.97 (talk) 07:49, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

They never presented any evidence that it is fake, apart from what people have observed already, that is, the Terracotta Army are very unusual in the history of Chinese sculpture in their realistic portrayal and size, i.e. they judged it on purely stylistic and aesthetic ground. Western scientists have studied the figures and did not find anything untoward, so I don't think there is any basis to the claim. At most, briefly mention it in the Hellenistic link hypothesis (say, add half a sentence that due to the unusual nature of the statues, some have claimed that they are forgery), but really I'm not sure it has much credence among academic circle to be worth putting in. Hzh (talk) 13:24, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

On that matter, has there been a particular past discussion on maintaining the paragraph regarding that bit of speculation? I went down the rabbit hole and it seems like the entire hypothesis is only supported by and originated from just one scholar. It's been over a decade since the claim was made and I haven't seen any further development of the hypothesis whatsoever within academia since. As such, it seems like a rather clear case of WP:UNDUE weight at this point to me. Sleath56 (talk) 00:28, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Someone added a paragraph, which was disputed then trimmed, then others added more for opposing views. Whether it was proposed by one scholar or more is not that relevant (seems that there are people who think it could be true), but whether it was discussed further is. There was a further BBC documentary a few years later which expanded on possible Greek link, but presented little solid evidence (they tried to find Greek DNA evidence, a bit foolish I think, although they did say something on bronze casting technique). Some Chinese were outraged by the suggestion of Western influence, but they can't produce solid evidence against the idea other than rhetoric. I see no problem with adding it because its unusual nature needs to be mentioned, although the paragraph can certainly be trimmed or rewritten (e.g. write about its unusual nature, then briefly mention the Hellenistic influence theory and objection to it, and maybe half a sentence about forgery allegation). Hzh (talk) 09:11, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

The procedure for assessing WP:DUE in terms of history/archaeology pages has been typically based on the existence of supporting coverage in academic WP:RS. In this regard, the presence of academic rebuttals or criticisms to those claims aren't particularly relevant for qualifying the claim itself as possessing due weight. As the criterion states: "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, it does not belong on Wikipedia," where the principal condition is not just the viewpoint being "mentioned" but "held" by those RS. This would not maintain the merit of the claim here, as while it has been "mentioned" by a handful of RS in rebuttal, it is only "held" by one scholar.

Additionally, though it is rather intriguing as far as these theories go, even if the claim had met the standards of WP:DUE, it should be important to note that per WP:OR, Wikipedia doesn't take independent assessments in how "solid" the evidence for or against is nor how unique or unusual the claim is perceived to be beyond how other RS have assessed the matter. As such, the passage even then would still be frankly problematic given that the response (both the immediate wave of rebuttals and lack of adoption in scholarship in the decade since) within academic RS would mean that per WP:PROPORTION, the large majority of the body passage would need to proportionately highlight those rebuttals rather than showcase the original claim itself to avoid implying as if there is a 50:50 split on the matter.

Returning to the matter of due weight, case in point for a rather more high-profile demonstration: some fringe academics have supported the "Black Cleopatra" claim over the years while countless scholars have rebutted that theory. Even though that theory has been far more notable in both popular and scholarly coverage than nearly all other fringe speculations in the history-adjacent fields, the consensus for that page there ultimately has been that the claim doesn't merit a passage on the Cleopatra page itself per the criteria of due weight. In that instance, the claim itself was particularly notable enough that an article for the controversy was created instead. Given that the theory here has neither the level of support as the compared case, being proposed by just a sole scholar, nor the notability as a controversy in of itself to qualify for a page, maintaining it seems to be as a case of WP:UNDUE. Sleath56 (talk) 19:59, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

I think you might be making it a bigger issue than it is. As far as I can see, it is just one of many little issues surrounding the artefacts and site that people look at, e.g. is the mercury in the soil contamination or from the tomb, is the chromium coating on the sword contamination or purposefully added, etc. things that not many people take position on, but are still added to the article. In actual fact though, a number of other people appear to be believe there might be Greek influence, including at least one of the Chinese archaeologists. Just taking a casual look of people who cited Lukas Nickel, you can in fact find books/articles that appear supportive of the idea of Greek influence [1][2], and some not dismissive [3]. You also get people who seem critical [4][5] but in fact does not dismissed entirely the possibility of Greek influence. Other sources just noted that this is what some people believe with no further comments. Frankly we don't know the proportion of pro and anti faction (but the pro does not appear to be a tiny minority), to try to suggest anything else would be OR. All I'm suggesting is to describe the whole issue in like two three sentences, trying to turn it into a full blown discourse is absurd. Hzh (talk) 22:47, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I have the impression that influence from the Hellenistic world or the Ancient Near East, perhaps vague and imprecise, is pretty widely accepted, not just in the West, but in China also. Johnbod (talk) 02:42, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Much belatedly revisiting this topic after I finally got around to combing through some of the recent literature published in the field, which I've further developed the passage to incorporate. At the very least, I believe this satisfactorily addresses the matter of WP:PROPORTION in the sense that the original passage in question implied, inaccurately, as if the sole theory discussed was the only existing hypothesis within WP:RS. The revision should now provide a comprehensive enough coverage of the historiographical and current state of academic study on this aspect of the objects. Sleath56 (talk) 04:30, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Seems like you ignored what other people said and just do what you want to do. Just a brief glance would tell you that the edit is problematic, like that claim "sculptural naturalism derives from a Qin funerary tradition", which at no point the paper says. The paper says two different things - the naturalism comes from the sculpture being based on real people, and it would be consistent with a funerary tradition to supply everything the dead needed in the afterlife. The problem with such argument is that there existed no such sculptural realism in China before the terracotta army, and no such army figures have been seen since when this tradition of providing things for the afterlife is widely practiced even by commoners right up to the present days (providing things for the afterlife is hardly an exclusively Qin thing). Also the one source the paper refers to is a thesis we cannot access, ditto another one source (and I've no idea what that source is) on the supposed origin of naturalism of terracotta warriors - if they are something widely considered to be true, then you should find plenty of reliable sources that are publicly available without having to resort to such dubious sources. The WP:PROPORTION you claim is just a cover for dubious assertions. As I said, there is no reason to expand it, and we should try to condense it to two or three sentences, and that would be done later. Hzh (talk) 11:01, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't see the need to be reductive with the passage and concise it for the sake of page aesthetics so long as WP:RS demonstrate a dynamic range of positions, which in the case of this topic, they appear to do. The fact alone that the original passage was essentially the presentation of a theory and two-thirds of the entire passage was spent for a rebuttal of it clearly demonstrates the existence of a high degree of engagement by RS on the topic, which the page is obligated to representatively reflect if the topic itself warrants WP:DUE coverage, which was the consensus reached previously above.

The "two things" that you've highlighted are the Hu et. al (2022) paper's conclusion and sub-conclusion. The opinion that "there existed no such sculptural realism" engages in WP:OR given that the paper is presenting one hypothesis on how such sculptural realism may have manifested.

On the subject of RS, I don't see the issue that you're asserting. The claim that the entire citational lineage embedded within an open-access academic source which is already RS must be open-access itself would virtually eliminate nearly all academic RS as eligible on Wikipedia, which isn't some manuscript tradition database.

On the adequacy of the RS ... I fail to see the point of contention here. Given that the very passage cites China Daily and The Conversation as RS, the characterization of theses within established academic journal and conference papers as "dubious assertions" is quite a thing to say.

Addressing the view that "there is no reason to expand it," I'd note that WP:BRD is a valid editorial procedure and as the revision was brought to the talk for feedback, phrasing one's disagreement with a BRD edit as "other editors merely doing what they want" seems unnecessary and that line of argument leads into WP:OWN territory if there is agreement that revision of some sort is required, yet that it should be "done later" despite evidently half a year of no movement on the process. Sleath56 (talk) 14:23, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

What you wrote is essentially your own OR, not even given in the source, reliable or not, therefore cannot stay. The paper simply doesn't say what you claim it says, concision doesn't mean making up your own claim, especially when the central research of the paper is about whether the terracotta army is based on real people, rather than your claim of sculptural realism being derived from a funerary tradition. You should be able to give the direct quote that this is what the source say, but you can't, because it simply doesn't say it, for example, something being consistent with a tradition doesn't mean that tradition originated it, because that something may be borrowed from another culture different from their tradition but still consistent with their own tradition.

The idea such an important concept as the source of the sculptural realism in China can be found only in a student thesis and an old paper in obscure journal (if that cited Wenbo source is that) we can't check is simply bizarre. If the idea is true, it would be found in any authoritative book and journal. WP:SCHOLARSHIP in any case clearly states what is acceptable for academic sources (so no, not all journals are acceptable), for example it says that thesis should be used with care and only if they are publicly available (and we can't really check that if we don't even know if that thesis is written in English or Chinese). Note also it clearly stated that masters theses are not considered reliable unless it has demonstrable significant scholarly influence, citing that source really reeks of desperation. We also can't assess the value of the journal the paper cited, whether it has been not peer reviewed by the wider academic community, or a POV journal, or whatever it is. But whatever they are or what they say (we can't check if they say anything that demonstrate what you wrote), they are still irrelevant to your claim because what you wrote is not what your cited source says. There is also no time limit on editing, whether I do it now or in another year's time is irrelevant. Hzh (talk) 16:27, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Given in the source:

"That means the MDS analysis result supports the theory that the warriors were based on a real army. Actually, this inference is also consistent with the funeral tradition and culture around Qin Dynasty. At that time, people viewed the afterlife as an extension of worldly life. Thereby, tomb builders always pursued to duplicate all aspects of the real world in the netherworld, including everything they needed [...] Therefore, theoretically, it is more reasonable that each life-sized terracotta soldier was modeled on an actual person.”

Opening line of conclusion: “The striking realism of terracotta warriors has led to hypothesize or believe that they were based on real soldiers who served in the emperor's army” (Hu et al. 2022).

The point is plain, and is effortless enough to locate within the article to refrain from conjecturally framing the revision as "OR" and challenging editors under non-WP:AGF grounds of "making up claims." One of the co-authors of the article at issue, Xiuzhen Li, is the Senior Archaeologist of the Emperor Qin Shihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum - the questioning of its place as a RS (or questioning its own references, which is not a requirement of RS validity to begin with) is absurd, period.

I’ll note that 1) the degree of accessibility to a source cited *within* a RS is not a requirement of WP:RS. Even the access to RS themselves, which is not the case here, does not categorically invalidate its validity for citation in WP per WP:SOURCEACCESS, 2) I’m not quite sure what your closing sentence is implying but invoking a personal WP:DEADLINE mood alongside instructing others that "there is no reason to expand it” is skirting on WP:OWNERSHIP territory, to be frank. Sleath56 (talk) 20:16, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't think you understand the difference between what you wrote and what the source wrote. The idea of full sized sculptural realism of a person was not found before the terracotta army in China, here the article suggests the army may be based on real people and that this is consistent with a funerary tradition, it doesn't say that idea of sculptural realism came from that funerary tradition. The idea could very well have come from somewhere else. The fact is that nothing like this was observed before Qin in China where the practice of burying figurines in tombs was already long present (the funerary tradition is certainly not exclusive to Qin), however, the figurines were always small and unrealistic representation of the person, what is done here is completely different. What you wrote is therefore OR.

When you look in the history of art, you can trace the development of a particular art form over a long time (you can see for example the influence on Greek statuary from an older Egyptian tradition, and how it changes from stiff kouros form into a more naturalistic representation), here you see nothing of the development, everything came out fully formed, which is extremely unusual. If you want to say that this is indeed what the article says, the claim would verge on the nationalistic POV propaganda of "the genius of Chinese people", and would explain why it cited obscure work rather than accepted reliable academic sources. But, whatever you think, it still doesn't really come out and state that.

The reason for not expanding this issue is precisely the WP:PROPORTION that you cited - An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject. This is entirely a minor side issue when you look at the sources that discuss the terracotta army, and does not warrant a large paragraph. Hzh (talk) 21:58, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

That actually is what the paper states precisely: that the idea of the statues’ realistic style is derived from the Qin funerary tradition that the emperor extended to his army as inspiration, modelling the statues after real-life soldiers, which the conclusion of the article, as cited previously, is hypothesized to be the cause of their "striking realism." Additionally, this is exactly also how it was formulated in the revision for this page:

"These findings have lent support to a hypothesis that the sculptural naturalism derives from a Qin funerary tradition to realistically duplicate possessions for the underworld, which in the case of the first emperor, extended to his soldiery."

As for everything else, I’m not sure if there’s some actual expectation for me to equivocate an editor’s OR to a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal like Heritage Science, co-written by the site’s senior archaeologist amongst others. Did you Ctrl+F the paper and find the proclamations you’ve been making somewhere within? That was rhetorical, given that I read through the whole paper for editorial due diligence of incorporating its thesis here while the repeated claims, which you finally dropped in the last response, that one of the most credentialed RS to befit this page is somehow not RS comes off like a backpedalling admission of a “well even if it says what you say, the RS is wrong because its not RS” approach of dismissing updates to the page out of hand.

Though at least we’re finally on the grounds of discussing the material content now instead of "RS credentials.” The paper did not synthesize its hypothesis on stylistic realism to any previous theories. None of those traces are mentioned in the paper so the conflation of this archaeological analysis with some OR perspective of art history is entirely irrelevant. Given that you cited WP:SCHOLARSHIP previously out of an impression that it applied to references within a RS, I recommend that you actually read through WP:OR. It’s not some random acronym to throw back at editors just because a line of argument you made was cautioned to be broaching OR.

WP:OR: To demonstrate that you are not adding original research, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article and directly support the material being presented.

Unless there’s RS that you can present to support the synthesis of the “convergent art development is impossible" hypothesis you’re espousing with the recent material archaeological assessments made in the Hu et al. 2022 paper, as the literature does not do so despite your personal assertions that there must be a “connection," there is no editorial basis for those personal concerns you’ve presented in such grounds. It's bizarre to see an WP regular editor express such sentiments, but it should be said if needed that WP is WP:NOTABOUTYOU and the fixation on explaining your personal perception of the RS and what you find “extremely unusual" through conspiratorial terms as if the senior archaeologist co-author is pulling a fast one on you by citing and endorsing its reference material (which is how the formation of academic engagement and consensus in scholarship works by the way and on another note, the idea that any dissertion is verboten material for citation is wildly off the mark on how scholarship works) and as if you know “better” than one of the foremost scholars in the relevant field could not be less relevant to the editorial process here. Sleath56 (talk) 19:37, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

You are just repeating your claim with no attempt the address what I said. I have no idea why you quote yourself in the discussion, when my complaint is exactly that the article does not say what you say. For example, on the subject of supporting a hypothesis, the article says "the result supports the theory that the warriors were based on a real army ... this inference is also consistent with the funeral tradition and culture ...", that is not the same as "lent support to a hypothesis that the sculptural naturalism derives from a Qin funerary tradition" that you wrote. You seem to have to have deleted a bunch of words (the theory that warriors were based on a real army, and that is the main theory of the article) and come up with is in effect your OR theory (sculptural naturalism being derived from a Qin funerary tradition). The source does not and cannot support your claim, it is therefore effectively unsourced. Per WP:OR Source material should be carefully summarized or rephrased without changing its meaning or implication.

As repeatedly stated, the article does not say that sculptural naturalism derives from a funerary tradition. The words the article used, "conforms to", "in line with" and "consistent with" a funerary tradition do not equal "derives from" a funerary tradition. Note that the funerary tradition that existed was actually for making small figurines with no regard for realism, and the authors cannot demonstrate that there was any such tradition of making life-size realistic figures in China. The creators of terracotta army could in theory make thousand of such small figurines to represent the army to be consistent with their funerary tradition, but that is not what they did, and what they did was unprecedented in China.

At least I see that you concede on WP:PROPORTION says on minor issue, which this is. Hzh (talk) 21:33, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

The entire passage, which really should have been unnecessary to cite in full as those invested in the points of its assessment as cited and abridged previously would presumably click the link and investigate the open-access text for themselves. I really don’t see the basis for the issue you’ve expressed of a difficulty in grasping the points of the paper, though the insinuation that the abridgment of the main premises ("You seem to have to have deleted a bunch of words”) was to hide some “the Klingons actually built it!” admission from the paper I wanted to pull the wool over is rather droll.

"That means the MDS analysis result supports the theory that the warriors were based on a real army. Actually, this inference is also consistent with the funeral tradition and culture around Qin Dynasty. At that time, people viewed the afterlife as an extension of worldly life. Thereby, tomb builders always pursued to duplicate all aspects of the real world in the netherworld, including everything they needed [7]. Therefore, it is reasonable that Qin Shihuang, as the first China emperor who unified the vassal states, established the “real army” in his necropolis to protect himself in the afterlife. Besides thousands of warriors, almost five hundred weapons such as spears and swords, and more than ten thousand scattered arrowheads have been found in pit no. 1 [5]. Sima Qian, a Han Dynasty historian who lived about a century after the first emperor’s time, also mentioned that the tomb of Qin Shihuang was intended to replicate the real world in his “Shiji” (Records of the Grand Historian). Therefore, theoretically, it is more reasonable that each life-sized terracotta soldier was modeled on an actual person.”

The full passage is even more direct in its meaning: The "striking realism” has been attributed to the statues being modelled off real soldiers. The inspiration of modelling them off real soldiers is due to a Qin tradition of duplicating possessions, which the emperor extended to his army so that he may protect himself per such funerary traditions, which also included weapons. This intent of replication under Qin era practice is corroborated by the report of Sima Qian that the tomb was meant to "replicate the real world”.

As for "At least I see that you concede...," good to know this editorial discussion have been conceptualized as a score game. On everything else, I’ve already addressed each of them, despite the assertion to the contrary, in previous responses which may still be referred to. I'll refrain from WP:BLUDing the discussion through endless rephrasing of already presented rebuttals. I'll add that my response on the matter of WP:PROPORTION has already been stated above.

Given that 1) your objections in the past responses have seemingly trudged through a carousel of tangents: ”The paper doesn’t say what you think it does.” -> "Even if it does, its references are not kosher.” -> “Even if it is a RS, there’s actually a big conspiracy afoot” -> “Even if there isn’t and everything checks out, it shouldn’t be included anyways due to WP:PROPORTION"; 2) your first line of appeal after having perceived to possess a valid means of objection is to kneejerk return to your expectation for "no reason to expand it,” rather than presenting genuine points of editorial order; 3) you admit there’s a need for the passage’s revision but it should be “done later” personally in perhaps “another year’s time,” I’d like to reiterate that my previous citation of WP:OWNERSHIP is not some pretextless non-AGF dig on your behalf, but a genuine note of attention based on the observations highlighted above.

As for the latest rendition of OR perceptions and uncited factoids inserted into this discussion, refer to the paragraph of my previous post above beginning with: "Unless there’s RS that you can present […]” Sleath56 (talk) 01:35, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Heavens, I think I have to consider that you are being deliberately obtuse and obdurate, keep saying the same thing but refusing to address the point I made, all the same time trying to bring up supposed rules and guidelines where the points I made are already in there (therefore suggesting that you haven't really read them), furthermore if WP:OWNERSHIP is an issue, I would have made the edit a long time ago and reverted your edit straightaway instead of discussing, can you accept that "wait and see" and discuss is a more appropriate response that quickly? Discussing is in fact the very point it makes.

I never disputed that the authors of the papers are suggesting the army may be based on real people, I'm disputing that it said sculptural naturalism is derived from a funerary tradition. When you see the authors keep using similar words like "conforms to", "in line with" and "consistent with", instead of "derived from", you can be sure that the authors did not want to venture into that territory. And the direct quote from the paper on supporting a hypothesis is that it is about supporting the theory of the army being based on real people, rather than it being derived from a funerary tradition. You are in fact telling us that you know better than what the authors said.

The theory that the faces of the army may be based on real people could and should go elsewhere, for example in the part that mentions how there are at least ten basic moulds for the faces and then further adjusted by adding individual features. It doesn't belong to the discussion of the origin of sculptural realism, because the paper doesn't claim what you claimed it said (the paper is clearly avoiding making that claim by the words it used). You should try sticking to what the paper says instead of thinking that you know better than the authors. Hzh (talk) 10:12, 2 February 2023 (UTC)