Chinese Terracotta Army Covered in Egg

Study of Chinese terracotta army, is a collection of 7,000 soldier and horse figures in the mausoleum of the country’s first emperor, was completely cover 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 varnish.

Co-author Catharina Blaensdorf, is a scientist at the Technical University of Munich in Germay, explain to Discovery News that “egg paint is normally very stable, and not soluble in water…This makes less sensitive to humidity and moisture.”

Egg proteins would have also ensured the adhesion of the paint to the varnish, while also giving the paint thickness and texture, added Blaensdorf’s coworker 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 soldier figurine faces, kneeling archers, swans and paint fragments found on the ground inside the 210 B.C. mausoleum. They chemically separated the flakes to separate 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 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 & azurite.