Around 100 BC, a Chinese historian named Sima Qian made a claim that sounded completely insane. He said the tomb of China's first emperor — Qin Shi Huang, the man behind the Great Wall and the Terracotta Army — contained rivers of flowing liquid mercury. Not a metaphor. Actual mercury, pumped through channels to copy the country's real waterways.
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Riddles of the Past·2/3·1′
The place
Terracotta Army
The Mercury Rivers of the Underworld
An emperor who built the cosmos underground
210 BC — Qin DynastyTerracotta Army
Moral of the Story
“Some truths dismissed as myth for millennia turn out to be stranger than any fiction.”
Characters
Q
Qin Shi Huang — the emperor who built the underworldS
Sima Qian — the historian who described itM
Modern scientists confirming the mercurySource
Sima Qian, "Shiji"; 2003 Chinese Academy of Sciences mercury survey; Archaeological Institute of Shaanxi Province