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Terracotta Warriors Have Egg on Their Faces -- Really!
Monday, April 21, 2008
Blog Author: Ellery Frahm
![Keywords: terracotta army, paint binder, organic chemistry, archaeomineraology
No, this isn't a story about the fake Chinese terracotta warriors recently displayed at the Museum of Ethnology in Hamburg, Germany (read about that story here, here, and here). This is about archaeological chemists finding a trace indicator of egg proteins in the paint on the terracotta warriors. Egg could have been used a binder to keep the paint adhered to a layer of lacquer over the clay figures. The egg may also have thickened the paints. Other ingredients in the paints include cerussite (a lead carbonate mineral which sparkles, also known as "lead white"), quartz, cinnabar (red-colored mercury sulfide), malachite (green-colored copper carbonate hydroxide), charcoal, copper salts, Chinese purple, and azurite (blue-colored hydrated copper carbonate).
Above: A few of the 7,000 Chinese terracotta warriors in the emperor's mausoleum. Credit: Galen Frysinger.
Excerpts from Discovery News:
China's Terracotta Army Covered in Egg
By Jennifer Viegas
China's terracotta army, a collection of 7,000 soldier and horse figures in the mausoleum of the country's first emperor, was entirely covered with beaten egg when it was constructed, according to German and Italian chemists who have analyzed samples from several of the figurines.
According to the research team, the egg served as a binder for colorful paints, which went over a layer of lacquer.
Co-author Catharina Blaensdorf, a scientist at the Technical University of Munich in Germay, explained to Discovery News that "egg paint is normally very stable, and not soluble in water...This makes [it] less sensitive to humidity and moisture."
Egg proteins would have also ensured the adhesion of the paint to the lacquer, while also giving the paint thickness and texture, added Blaensdorf's colleague Ilaria Bonaduce, of the University of Pisa in Italy.
For the study, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Cultural Heritage, the researchers took samples from warrior figurine faces, kneeling archers, swans and paint fragments found on the ground inside the 210 B.C. mausoleum. They chemically separated the flakes to isolate the ingredients, and then inserted them into a machine that determined their composition.
The researchers thought animal glue might have served as a binder, but all of the data pointed to egg instead. The pigments, they found, were bone white, lead white, cerussite (which sparkles), quartz, cinnabar, malachite, charcoal black, copper salts, Chinese purple and azurite.
Bright hues were important "because color was precious and a colorful army was the best, and an emperor could demand the best," said Blaensdorf.
The sturdy terracotta and thick, eggy paint add to the conclusion that the army was also built to last. . .
To read the rest of the article, visit the Discovery News website:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/04/18/terracotta-army-egg.html
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/04/21/2223137.htm
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