A documentary New Secrets of the Terracotta Army recently won the British Best Public Presentation of Archaeology award from the "British Archaeological Awards 2014" in an awarding ceremony held in the British Museum. The documentary was co-filmed by Britain’s Lion TV and China Hong Kong’s Phoenix TV and was largely based on research carried out by a team from the UCL (University College London） Institute of Archaeology, in collaboration with colleagues at the Emperor Qin Shihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum in China. Since the archaeology program of Emperor Qin Shihuang's Mausoleum won the Spanish Prince of Asturias Prize in 2010, it’s another award related to this research area.
Amongst the many new findings, the film revealed the true extent of the site and number of warriors and that the weapons carried by the warriors were full military grade, rather than replicas: they were designed to kill as efficiently in the afterlife as in this one.
It brought new insights into how the figures were made, including revolutionary 3D computer modelling of the warriors' heads. It challenged traditional explanations and changed our understanding of how a workforce of thousands was organized to build a mausoleum for China's First Emperor some 2,200 years ago. It debuted on Channel 4 on Dec 8, 2013, and hit a domestic record of drawing an average audience of nearly 3 million people in Britain in that time slots.
Experts attributed its success to its content which appealed the interests of western audience. The advanced ideas and technology changed the western audience’s former knowledge of Qin Shihuang's Mausoleum and Terracotta Army. Meanwhile, the current widespread influence of Terracotta Army was also an important factor. Shaanxi cultural relics experts said that this award also gave inspiration to their future work in research, presentation and publicity.
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