NOVA

It was a civilization of extraordinary ingenuity

and inventiveness in every field...

Including warfare.

But in ancient China, one weapon stood for power and prestige

like no other.

The chariot.

In order to be a superpower,

you needed to be able to count your chariots

in the tens of thousands.

Now a major new excavation is helping to unlock the secrets

of this ancient war machine.

We were excited beyond words.

Clues hidden in the earth for nearly 3,000 years

reveal the complexity of its construction.

Blimey!

That is a huge wheel!

The changing tactics that helped it rule the battlefield.

Got him!

And why it was so different from chariots

in other parts of the world.

Thousands thundered across China's battlefields.

But how was the chariot really used in combat?

And how effective was it?

One way to find out is to bring a Chinese chariot back to life.

Now, expert craftsmen...

It's not without its dangers, this game.

Engineers...

We've finally made

a successful piece today.

And military historians.

Inhabiting that space

tells you how it should be used.

Combine to build and battle-test

a replica of a Chinese chariot.

Perfect fit.

They'll decode

engineering riddles hidden in this ancient military machine.

Investigate how it went from a high-status symbol

to a weapon of all-out war.

And discover its impact on China's history.

Without a doubt,

chariots played a crucial role

in the unification of China.

"Chinese Chariot Revealed," right now on NOVA.

The country we know today as China

was once a mass of competing states, frequently at war.

The conflict between them created an ancient arms race

as leaders battled to reign supreme,

kingdoms rose and fell on the battlefield.

At the heart of this struggle was a weapon...

that was prized more than any other...

the chariot.

Yijie Zhuang is a landscape archaeologist

who's been studying ancient Chinese society.

There are many, many archaeological sites

all over China,

and one thing that appeared time and time again were chariots.

So chariots definitely were a very crucial part

of ancient societies thousands of years ago.

Although we can gather clues about chariots

in the texts of ancient scholars,

as China historian Robin Yates has discovered,

many mysteries remain.

They tell us generalizations, but they don't tell us

exactly how they were used on the field of battle.

Now, a new discovery in Hubei Province, Central China,

in the town of Zaoyang, may help to answer

some of these questions.

In 2002, a vast ancient cemetery

about 200 times the size of a football field was discovered.

At the time, archaeologists were only able to unearth

some of its treasures, leaving the rest buried.

But modern-day tomb robbers have targeted the site,

so archaeologist Qin Fang has been called in

for a rescue operation.

What a great day.

It's a chance for the team to finish the work they'd started.

He and his colleagues have been slowly unearthing

the rest of the cemetery's hidden treasures.

They've discovered 29 tombs,

but one in particular stands out.

After archaeological surveying,

we realized this was a large mausoleum.

This tomb is larger than the others,

but its original inhabitant is missing.

The skeleton appears to have been stolen.

Who was he?

Qin Fang excavates the remaining objects in the tomb.

I think it's possibly some kind of instrument,

a musical instrument?

Besides a bronze bell, there are more personal items,

including precious pieces of jade.

Look, the carvings are really clear.

Objects this valuable can only mean one thing:

the person they were buried with

must have been wealthy and powerful.

The owner of the tomb was a duke, a man of high status.

We were excited beyond words.

Among the many artifacts,

Qin Fang identifies a unique piece of pottery.

Its distinctive style and shape

allows him to date the burial site to around 700 BC.

In early Chinese history, the first dynasties controlled

an area between the Yangtze and the Yellow Rivers,

much smaller than today's China and very divided.

At this time,

China was not the unified nation

that we know today.

The dynasty in power were the Zhou,

and when the Zhou came to power, they divided the country

into smaller states and ruled with relative peace.

And the site also offers a clue

as to which of the Zhou's many states the duke ruled.

On a bronze pot an inscription, "Zeng," so that suggests

he was a wealthy aristocrat from the State of Zeng.

Historians believe it was a small,

rather insignificant state surrounded by larger enemies.

Even though the Zhou ruled, over the centuries,

the individual states would grow more powerful

and started vying for control,

constantly warring with each other.

The most important find at the site

could also have played a key part in those struggles.

As they dig further, the archaeologists begin to notice

subtle differences in the soil.

In some places, color changes suggest

the outlines of mysterious objects.

They realize these shapes are the imprints left behind

by ancient wooden structures, which have rotted away

over the 2,700 years they've been buried.

Excavating is very challenging.

The wooden structure has long gone.

What's left is a hollow cavity, filled with soil.

So basically, we are tracing the soil inside the cavity.

As they study the shapes, the site begins to make sense.

They identify the outline of what looks like a platform,

and in the center an axle connected to two wheels.

There can be no mistaking it.

It's the ghostly remains of a chariot.

But the biggest surprise is yet to come.

There isn't just one chariot...

We discovered a chariot pit of 28 chariots

and a horse pit of 49 horses.

This discovery was beyond our imagination.

Not one but a whole squadron of chariots is unearthed.

The layout of the tombs suggests the chariots belonged

to the duke.

The color and texture of the soil indicates

they were all buried at the same time.

The elaborate bronze wheel fittings

are all that survive intact.

So many chariots must have cost an enormous amount.

Not to mention, the 49 horses buried alongside them.

These horses seem like a mess, but actually they are not.

Usually, you find two horses together.

These two are put together,

so it looks like this pair horses pulled the same chariot.

But why would he have buried them alongside his tomb?

Were they going to live on with their master?

The ancient Chinese believed

they they can live a new life after their death.

So one of the things they often take into their afterlife

were chariots

because they believed that chariots can also guard them

in warfare and fighting in the afterlife.

Hiorian Jeffrey Riegel is an expert

in ancient China.

He believes the chariot was a symbol of prestige

that the Chinese would want to bring with them

into the afterlife.

The chariots were so important that even after they died,

they wanted to have their chariots with them

so that the gods would recognize

that these were important people.

The chariot was part of their identity;

it represented their status;

it was expressive of their power and their prestige.

So the chariot was so important that leaders

like the duke of Zeng invested a fortune in them.

But why?

Was it their performance on the battlefield?

Or were they simply elaborate status symbols?

One way to find out is to build a replica

and test its true capabilities.

Two chariot experts have been granted special permission

to visit the Zaoyang excavation.

Their goal is to carry out this experiment

by bringing one of these chariots back to life.

Within a week, this excavation site will be covered over,

so this will be their only chance to gather

detailed evidence for themselves.

Military historian Mike Loades has tested chariots

from across the world.

But he's never before been able to properly investigate

a Chinese chariot.

All the ancient Chinese texts talk about the importance

of the chariot, but they don't tell us how you actually fought

in a chariot, and the only way to really find that out

is to build one and do some field-testing with it.

Expert coachbuilder Robert Hurford