Who’s buried in Qin Shihuang’s tomb?
They built round vertical pipes with a smooth strait I.D. and had a very heavy plunger that was almost a perfect fit to the inside of the pipe. A simple lever would tip and drop the heavy weight into the pipe, which would drop a few feet and build up high air pressure that would then blow a poison dart down another piece of tubing toward whoever tripped the lever.
One expedition back in the 19th century supposedly tripped one and it hit the backpack of one of the team members, didn't hurt him but it still had the poison caked on the tip. They estimated the thing was almost two thousand years old.
|
|||
Gods |
Thanks Blam. |
||
· Mirabilis · Texas AM Anthropology News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · · History or Science & Nature Podcasts · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
Amongst the periods in time that I want to see most, the period in China between 0AD and 900AD is certainly in the top ten. The age of the Three Kingdoms and all of it's conflict has always fascinated me. Too bad it's so hard to separate myth and legend from fact, but I think that I could stay enthralled without searching for the truest history of the time.
I've got to visit China someday and see whatever's left from this period for myself. What I've read of classical-era China is profoundly inspiring, dreadfully sorrowful, and utterly hilarious.
Flowing Mercury rivers and lakes in the 3D relief map of the empire..............
If this was a multiple-choice quiz, the options would be:
A. Bush's fault
B. the neo-cons' fault
C. caused by global warming
D. a huge manatee
E. Haliburton's fault