Provenance Study of the Terracotta Army of Qin Shihuang’s Mausoleum by Fuzzy Cluster Analysis

Abstract EN

20 samples and 44 samples of terracotta warriors and horses from the 1st and 3rd pits of Qin Shihuang’s Mausoleum, 20 samples of clay near Qin’s Mausoleum, and 2 samples of Yaozhou porcelain bodies are obtained to determine the contents of 32 elements in each of them by neutron activation analysis (NAA).

The NAA data are further analyzed using fuzzy cluster analysis to obtain the fuzzy cluster trend diagram.

The analysis shows that the origins of the raw material of the terracotta warriors and horses from 1st and 3rd pits are not exactly the same but are closely related to the loam soil layer near Qin’s Mausoleum while distant from the loess layers in the same area and remotely related to the Yaozhou porcelain bodies.

It can be concluded that the raw material of the terracotta warriors and horses was taken from certain loam layer near Qin’s Mausoleum and the kiln sites might be located nearby.