Duan Qingbo (; February 1964 – 13 October 2019) was a Chinese

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

. He served as the chief archaeologist of the

Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor The Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang () is a tomb complex constructed for Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of the Chinese Qin dynasty. It is located in modern-day Lintong District in Xi'an, Shaanxi. It was constructed over 38 years from 246 to 208 ...

and Dean of the School of Cultural Heritage of Northwest University in

Xi'an Xi'an is the list of capitals in China, capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong plain, the city is the third-most populous city in Western China after Chongqing and Chengdu, as well as the most populou ...

. He discovered the large-scale drainage system of

Qin Shi Huang Qin Shi Huang (, ; February 25912 July 210 BC), born Ying Zheng () or Zhao Zheng (), was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of China. He is widely regarded as the first ever supreme leader of a unitary state, unitary d ...

's mausoleum and a high-ranking noble tomb in the mausoleum precinct. He also spent over two years surveying more than of the

Great Wall The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand Li (unit), ''li'' long wall") is a series of fortifications in China. They were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection agains ...

on foot.

Life and career

Duan was born in February 1964 in Ruicheng County, Shanxi, China. He graduated from Northwest University in

with a bachelor's degree in archaeology in 1985. He later earned a Ph.D. in archaeology in 2008. He began working at the

Shaanxi Shaanxi is a Provinces of China, province in north Northwestern China. It borders the province-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north; Shanxi and Henan to the east; Hubei, Chongqing, and Sichuan to the south; and Gansu and Ningxia to t ...

Provincial Institute of Archaeology in 1988, where he served as deputy director of the Qin– Han Archaeological Research Office and director of the Sui– Tang Archaeological Research Office. In 1998, Duan was appointed chief archaeologist of the

. In the following decade, he led the excavation of the mausoleum precinct. His team discovered the ruins of China's three oldest and largest que towers, the mausoleum's large-scale underground dam and drainage system, and a large double-ramped noble tomb that ranks only below

's own mausoleum in importance. He oversaw the publication of three excavation reports, in 1999, 2000, and 2002. Duan's excavations led him to the conclusion that the underground realm of the mausoleum imitated the real organization of the court in the emperor's lifetime, with terracotta officials, musicians, even acrobats and realistic bronze waterfowl, in addition to the famous

Terracotta Army The Terracotta Army is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210–209 BCE with the purpose of protecting him in his aft ...

. He also found that the emperor might have employed people from west

Eurasia Eurasia ( , ) is a continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, Physical geography, physiographically, Eurasia is a single supercontinent. The concept of Europe and Asia as distinct continents d ...

, as the structure of the mausoleum bore similarities to the

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus or Tomb of Mausolus (; ) was a tomb built between 353 and 351 BC in Halicarnassus (present Bodrum, Turkey) for Mausolus, an Anatolian from Caria and a satrap in the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and his sister-wi ...

, which had been built a century earlier in today's Turkey. In his long article ''Sino-Western Cultural Exchange as Seen through the Archaeology of the First Emperor's Necropolis'' Duan Qingbo generally supported the idea that the

and the

Qin Shihuang Mausoleum The Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang () is a tomb complex constructed for Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of the Chinese Qin dynasty. It is located in modern-day Lintong District in Xi'an, Shaanxi. It was constructed over 38 years from 246 to 208 ...

were influenced by

Hellenistic art Hellenistic art is the art of the Hellenistic period generally taken to begin with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and end with the Roman Greece, conquest of the Greek world by the Romans, a process well underway by 146 BC, when the G ...

. In 2018, he also held a conferences at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

entitled ''Persian and Greek Participation in the making of China’s First Empire''. Duan found that the Epang Palace, recorded in histories as a luxurious palace which symbolized Qin Shi Huang's tyranny and greed, was actually never built except for its foundation. In his 2018 book, ''Qin Mausoleum: A Dust-Laden Empire'', he argues that Qin Shi Huang had been vilified by

Han dynasty The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC ...

historians such as

Sima Qian Sima Qian () was a Chinese historian during the early Han dynasty. He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for the ''Shiji'' (sometimes translated into English as ''Records of the Grand Historian''), a general history of China cov ...

, who have cemented the emperor's reputation as a cruel and tyrannical ruler. In 2006, he was appointed leader of the Shaanxi Great Wall Survey Team and spent the next two years surveying of the

in Shaanxi on foot. He subsequently surveyed parts of the Great Wall in neighbouring

Gansu Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...

province. In 2009, Duan returned to his alma mater to teach at the School of Cultural Heritage of Northwest University. He served as deputy dean of the school from 2010 to 2014 and as dean from 2017 until his death. He advised 48 graduate students at the university. Duan authored more than 10 books and about 100 research papers. He received over 10 national, provincial, and ministerial awards.

Death

Duan was diagnosed with

kidney cancer Kidney cancer, also known as renal cancer, is a group of cancers that starts in the kidney. Symptoms may include blood in the urine, a lump in the abdomen, or back pain. Fever, weight loss, and tiredness may also occur. Complications can include ...

and had one of his kidneys surgically removed in 2016. In May 2019, it was discovered that his cancer had

metastasized Metastasis is a pathogenic agent's spreading from an initial or primary site to a different or secondary site within the host's body; the term is typically used when referring to metastasis by a cancerous tumor. The newly pathological sites, ...

to his lung. He underwent another surgery in July 2019, but died on 13 October 2019 in Xi'an, aged 55. He was survived by his wife Wu Chun ().

Life and career

Death

References

Further reading