1974 – Discovery and Disappearance
This was the year of two contrasting and extra-ordinary events. Thousands of men were discovered in 1974, and at the end of the same year one man disappeared. Both events retain a sense of mystery, as if they are still not fully understood, and certainly remain fascinating and not quite resolved. The discovery relates to events in the late third century BCE, but first revealed in 1974; the disappearance to events that took place towards the end of that year.
I first visited Xi’an first nearly twenty years ago. As is so often the case in going to a new city in China, I was thrown by my ignorance. The first shock was, as usual, the size of the population. Recent figures indicate some 12m live in Xi’an, which is the largest city in northwest China, located in Shaanxi Province, and about 560 miles from Beijing and 760 miles from Shanghai. The second was to appreciate that it is one of oldest cities in China, usually described as one of the ‘Four Great Ancient Capitals’ along with Beijing, Nanjing and Luoyang, a key centre during many of the important Chinese dynasties. It wasn’t always called Xi’an. When China was unified in the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE), the capital was set up in Xianyang, close to modern Xi’an. Shortly after, a new Emperor, establishing what became the Han Dynasty, built his capital in Chang’an in 202 BCE, and it was this city which was later to become known as Xi’an.
This was an era in which Emperors thought big. Emperor Liu Bang built Weiyang Palace, in the northern area modern Xi’an, the largest palace ever built on Earth, covering 4.8 square kilometres (1,200 acres), which is 6.7 times the size of Beijing’s Forbidden City (and 11 times the size of Vatican City). The original city wall was started in 194 BC and measured just under 16 miles, nearly 53 feet thick at the base, enclosing 14 square miles. Sadly, Weiyang Palace is long gone, but after years of unrest, Chang’an was built during the Sui Dynasty at the end of the 6th Century: at the time, it was the largest city in the world. This was the city to which the Buddhist Monk, Xuanzang brought the Sanskrit manuscripts the emperor had requested from India. His journey was the basis for the fiction ‘Journey to the West’, one of the three great early books of China, containing, to the delight of millions of young people, the adventures on Sun Wukong, better known as ‘Monkey’. The Buddhist manuscripts were housed in a giant pagoda, over 200 feet high (badly damaged in the a 16th Century earthquake, but, reduced in height, is still standing. The city also contains the Nestori Stele, from 781, a ten foot tall limestone block describing Christian communities in several cities in northern China. Xi’an (renamed Chang’an) fell into a slump, but it was rescued during the Ming Dynasty, when a new wall was constructed in 1370, still intact today, enclosing the 4.6 square mile centre of Xi’an, 7.5 miles along it four sides, 40 feet high, and up to 60 feet thick at the base. It is an awe-inspiring sight.
I had no idea of any of this. Nor was I aware that Xi’an was the starting point of the Silk Road. Today it is a cultural, industrial, political and educational centre for the central-northwest region, with a focus on research and development, national security and space exploration. It is the most populous city in northwest China , and the third largest in western China. In is considered one of the 7 main emerging megacities of the country. It is also one of the world’s top 40 science cities according to an Index compiled by Nature, with its several prestige universities including Xi’an Jiaotong University, regarded as #14 in China. But I did know one thing before I arrived in Xi’an. It is home to the Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin, discovered by a group of farmers digging a well in 1974, revealing Qin’s burial place, after being forgotten for hundreds of years.
The Terracotta Army is actually one part of a huge necropolis at Mount Li, some 30 miles to the northeast of the centre of Xi’an. Claimed to be the eighth ‘wonder of the world’, the overall site covers 38 square miles, with its focus on the tomb of Emperor Qin. Like everything else in this region, the mausoleum is huge, buried underneath a 250 feet tall tomb mound, shaped like a truncated pyramid, and it is laid out like the Qin capital Xianyang. The tomb is sealed, roughly the size of a soccer pitch, and remains unopened to this day, given concerns over preservation of what lies inside. The risks are clear: in excavating the Terracotta Army, some figures began to flake, as the lacquer covering the painted warriors can curl in fifteen seconds, and once exposed to Xi’an’s dry air, it can fall off in just four minutes.
Visiting the site is a slightly strange experience, although it must have changed since I was last there (I have been twice). Slightly strange in the sense that the emphasis is on the Warriors, and the museum tells the history of the site and the finds. There is a museum shop, but I had the sense that most Chinese visitors were there to see the warriors, and souvenirs were secondary. It is slightly surreal to be in a large hall, with hundreds of other silent visitors, looking down at row after row of ancient statues, witnesses to imperial power, and the transience of human life.
The atmosphere reminded me of my visit to the Ming Tombs north of Beijing, and the sad story of that historic site. Dingling is one of the Thirteen Tombs at the Ming Dynasty site, where the Wanli Emperor and his two consorts were interred. It is the only Ming tomb to have been excavated, in fact the only intact imperial tomb of any era to have been excavated since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Excavation of Dingling began in 1956, and was completed in 1957 with a museum opened two years later. The tomb was intact, containing thousands of items of silk, textiles, wood, and porcelain. However, there was neither the technology nor the resources to preserve the finds and most of the surviving artifacts are severely deteriorated today, while the documentation of the excavation was poor. Further trouble came with the Cultural Revolution, when Red Guards dragged the remains of the Wanli Emperor and consorts to the front of the tomb, where they were ‘denounced’ and burned, and any artifacts destroyed. The lessons learnt from that disaster resulted in a government ban on excavating any historical site except for rescue purposes, and no proposal to open an imperial tomb has been approved since Dingling. As for Dingling itself, it is a chilling, empty mausoleum.
The figures in ‘Pit 1’ are the main attraction at Terracotta Warriors museum complex. They comprise the largest part of the finds to date. They vary in height according to their roles, with the tallest being the generals, and the total includes some 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses, and 150 cavalry horses, together with officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians (the non-military statues are to be found in other sites at the complex). Pit 1, which is 750 feet by 200feet, contains the main army of more than 6,000 figures, standing in ranks along eleven corridors most around 10 feet wide and paved with small bricks. They would have been covered with a wooden ceiling supported by large beams and posts, the same design was also used for the tombs of nobles, designed to resemble palace hallways at the time they were built.
Some of the figures show fire damage, evidence of likely looting in the past. They are life-sized, varying in height, uniform, and hairstyle in accordance with rank. At first glance as you look at the ranks of soldiers each face seems different, although research has revealed there are 10 basic face shapes according to military role. However, there are many variations in the figures, the uniforms and even the terracotta horses placed among the figures. Originally, the warriors were painted, using dyes from ground precious stones, as well as intensely fired bones for white, red from cinnabar and iron oxide, charcoal (for black), green from malachite, blue from azurite, and other colours from a variety of sources. As the guide book suggests, they must have looked very realistic, sombre guards protecting the emperor. As I mentioned earlier, visitors are largely quiet as they walk round the excavation: it is more than merely impressive, but rather a sight that commands respect, even awe, just as the emperor would have wanted.
The atmosphere changes when you enter the museum, as if you’ve been freed to talk again. Of all the finds in the museum, three are quite extraordinary. Two are bronze Qin bronze chariots, and both have terracotta horses to pull them, carefully reproduced at about 50% the size of a real horse. The detail from the remains is almost unbelievable. There are also complete sets of bronze armour, as well as weapons, coins, jade ornaments, roof tiles and decorative bricks, and a bronze crane and swan. The contrast between Pit 1 and the museum is stark: it is as if you have gone from the sacred to the profane.
I have been fortunate to visit many Chinese historical places, The Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, the Great Wall, and so the list goes on. However, the warriors in the Qin emperor’s complex, and the sad, empty Dingling tomb will always take first place in my memory of the history of the country. I am certain both places have been improved in recent years to make them more accessible and interesting to visitors, especially those from overseas. However, whether or not that’s true, you should visit both if you can. They are testimony to a great civilisation of the past and to transience. Our world is better in so many ways, but how did Percy Shelley express it:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Thousands of warriors discovered in 1974, while over in the UK, and almost certainly receiving far more attention at the time, Lord Lucan disappeared in November of that year.
Who was Lord Lucan? He was a British peer, a member of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. Born in 1934, he was to spend most of the Second World War living, rather luxuriously, in Canada and then the USA. On returning to the UK after the war, he was a student at Eton, and it was there he developed his passion for gambling. At school he managed to run a bookmaking account, putting his income into a ‘secret” bank account. With a relatively poor academic record, he left the school in 1953 for his National Service, joining his father’s regiment, the Coldstream Guards. Soon he was a regular gambler, winning – and losing – at backgammon, bridge and poker. He met Veronica Duncan early in 1963, and they married at the end of the year, living on a large financial settlement from his father. His father died in 1964, and he inherited the title.
Lucan would not have won a prize for industriousness. According to Wikipedia, his daily routine consisted of breakfast at 9:00 am, coffee, dealing with the morning’s letters, reading the newspapers, and playing the piano. He would lunch at the Clermont Club, followed by afternoon games of backgammon. After returning home to change into evening dress he would return to gamble at the Clermont Club, often into the early hours of the next day. You could summarise his lifestyle as expensive and risky. By 1972, the financial pressures caused by his gambling combined his wife’s continuing post-natal depression led Lucan to move out, into a small property in Eaton Row. This was to escalate into a bitter dispute between the couple, centred on child custody, and involving friends and family. Lucan spied on his wife’s movements, and cut off most of her funds, to the point she took a part-time job in a local hospital. However, he lost a court case over custody, and was spiraling into serious debt by 1974.
In the middle of the year, a new nanny, Sandra Rivett began to work for the Lucans. She spoke with her boyfriend around 8 pm on 7 November, and after putting the younger children to bed. She asked Veronica if she would like a cup of tea, before heading downstairs to the basement kitchen just before 9 pm . There, she was bludgeoned to death with a piece of bandaged lead pipe. Her killer then placed her body into a canvas mailbag. Wondering what had delayed her, Lady Lucan went to the top of the basement stairs and was attacked. Lady Lucan later claimed to have recognised her husband’s voice. After giving up further struggle during a short fight, she asked where Rivett was, and said Lucan admitted to having killed her. Terrified, Lady Lucan told him she could help him escape if only he would remain at the house for a few days, to allow her injuries to heal. Lucan walked upstairs and sent his daughter to bed, then went into one of the bedrooms. As soon as she could, Lady Lucan escaped, running outside to call the police.
By the time the police arrived early on Friday 8 November, Sandra Rivett was declared dead and there was no sign of a forced entry. A bloodstained towel was found in Veronica’s first-floor bedroom. The area around the top of the basement staircase was heavily bloodstained, and the blood covered lead pipe lay on the floor. Officers also searched 5 Eaton Row, which was where Lucan had moved in early 1973. Nothing untoward was found; on the bed, a suit and shirt lay alongside a book on Greek shipping millionaires, and Lucan’s wallet, car keys, money, driving licence, handkerchief and spectacles were on a bedside table. His passport was in a drawer and his blue Mercedes-Benz parked outside, its engine cold and its battery flat. Very quickly, the search began. Since Lucan had yet to make an appearance, his description was circulated to police forces across the country. Newspapers and television stations were told only that Lucan was wanted by the police for questioning.
During the day, he wrote to his brother-in-law from a friend’s house to claim he had interrupted a fight, but that “The circumstantial evidence against me is strong in that V will say it was all my doing.” A warrant for Lucan’s arrest, on charges of murdering Sandra Rivett, and attempting to murder his wife, was issued on Tuesday 12 November 1974. Descriptions of his appearance were issued to police forces across the UK and to Interpol. With no confirmed sightings after 8 November, Lucan’s disappearance has remained in the UK public’s imagination for decades, with thousands of unverified reports from around the world, as well as rumours about his committing suicide, or being killed by gambling syndicates. For nearly 40 years, writers, amateur detectives, and media have kept asking ‘Where is Lord Lucan?’ Like the mystery of the Mary Celeste one hundred years earlier, the best disappearances will always keep us guessing!
