In the early 1990s, the solidity of Asian origins was forever challenged. Already, in 1974, the vast tomb of China’s first emperor had been unearthed, featuring an entire army of terracotta soldiers individually carved and ornamented as if poised to follow the emperor into the afterlife. While the terracotta soldiers merely affirmed Chinese assumptions about their own origins, another discovery dating back to the first years of the 20th century, and eventually rediscovered nearly 100 years later, would prove damaging to the Chinese worldview.

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