Spirited Away — page 3

To see how locals are plundering their own heritage, travel to the desolate villages southeast of Xi'an, the city that is home to China's famed terra-cotta warriors. These villagers might be dirt-poor, but the earth is plenty rich. It was in early 2001 when whispers began circulating that collectors would pay big money for anything they could dig up from the tomb of Empress Dou, a mighty dowager who died in 135 B.C. So well known was the burial site that locals assumed ancient-grave robbers had long ago relieved the tomb's chambers of any gold or silver buried with the Empress. But now collectors were willing to pay for artifacts the farmers hadn't imagined anyone would want: clay pots grimy with antiquity, chipped ceramic statuettes and other detritus of burial rites. A local antiques dealer offered prospective tomb raiders $60 or more for a night's work—about the same amount the average local earns in an entire year, after taxes.

Five villagers agreed to do the job. Using a tangan, a crude shovel with a specially curved blade and an extra-long handle, they probed deep into the earth around the mound, extracting core samples and examining the dirt for indicators such as traces of charcoal, which the ancients packed around tombs to ward off humidity. Locating a likely spot, the villagers lit the fuse on a 50-kg lump of homemade dynamite and blew a hole in the middle of a wheatfield. Having blasted their way nearer the top of the tomb, they donned gas masks to filter the stale tomb air, then tunneled into the burial chamber itself.

By the next morning, the acrid smell of explosives had wafted to the nearest village, and someone tipped off the cops that looters might be at work. The following night the police staked out the tomb and spied the five raiders digging. Three of them were caught, the other two got away. State press hailed it as a triumph, but instead of filling in the hole and posting a guard, the underfunded local cultural-relics bureau simply placed wooden planks across the hole, tossed in some dirt and walked away. Before long, other gangs pilfered at least 200 treasures, mostly ceramic statues, from the site. Among the loveliest of these pieces was a series of delicately painted female figurines, which could fetch at least $10,000 in the Xi'an underground market and up to $80,000 in London or New York City. Though just as rare, other figurines from Empress Dou's tomb were worth only $6,000 apiece because of their unprepossessing color, a charcoal gray unique to some ceramics of this region.

	You can't PROVE they were STOLEN. It's like they NEVER EXISTED at all. —HONG KONG ART DEALER

To the destitute farmers of central China, the allure of such plunder is hard to resist—but the reality of life as a tomb raider is less enticing. Feng, who asks to be identified only by his last name, recalls vividly the first time he descended into the crumbly earth of Henan province six years ago. In his village on the outskirts of Luoyang, robbing a tomb is like an initiation rite, and Feng, then 19, was filled with nervous excitement as he and a group of fellow raiders ambled into a local wheatfield to see what they could dig up. It was after midnight, and they were all red-faced after an evening drinking sorghum spirits. In truth, Feng admits, he was a little spooked—children in this area are raised on ghost stories of imperial ancestors haunting mischievous villagers, even as adults make their living off the very graves these ancestors inhabit. As the men tossed up spadefuls of dirt, chatting and laughing under the glare of a light hooked up to a generator, Feng noticed a smell he likened to fermented bean curd. The stench from the stale tomb air was so noxious that one of the men standing over the hole staggered away and vomited.

A few minutes later, Feng's uncle told him that, as the youngest, he had the honor of going down on a solo reconnaissance mission. Eager to prove himself, Feng slithered down into the darkness with only a rope as a guide. When he took his first breath upon reaching the floor of the tomb, the smell overwhelmed him. Feng remembered nothing after that. Later, his uncle told him he had fainted from the putrid air, and a pair of other raiders had to drag Feng out. The operation was halted until the next night, when the looters lugged in an industrial air blower to clear out the tomb. When his uncle and another villager emerged with the first of five Tang dynasty ceramic animals—each worth about $10,000 in the West—the young Feng felt a touch of proprietary pride. "I risked my life for those statues," he says. "But when they came up with such expensive things, I was hooked." Feng, who was paid $45 for his maiden raid, doesn't mention the pieces' beauty—it's beyond him why Westerners would waste so much money on these dusty old things. But the thrill of the treasure hunt hasn't diminished: "The excitement gives our lives some meaning."

Of course, his chosen field is not without its risks. Middlemen and dealers, who receive the vast proportion of the profits from stolen art, are rarely prosecuted for their crimes. But the authorities occasionally like to make an example of the lowly looters, who are easier to catch. Last year Chinese courts meted out the death penalty to at least four tomb raiders. "I know someone who was executed for looting a tomb," says Feng. "He made 580 yuan [$70]. Now, I hear the tricolor female statue he dug up was recently resold in New York for 150,000 yuan [$18,000]. No one is getting arrested in New York. How fair is that?"

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Next

	Stealing Beauty [June 25, 2003] Officials uncover the largest-ever theft of Chinese cultural artifacts, while countless others remain missing Where Civilizations Once Clashed [July 22, 2002] Exploring China's Ji'an, capital of ancient Koguryo Mummy Not So Dearest [April 16, 2001] A supposed 2,600-year-old mummy discovered in Pakistan turns out to be a 21st-century sham In Angkor? Don't Steal That Statue: It's a Fake [May 21, 2001] To foil theives, Cambodian conservationists are replacing many Angkor sculptures with copies More Related Items | Search all issues of TIME Magazine