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In China's Valley of the Kings there stands a tall carved stone
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It marks the tomb of a woman who rose from lowly concubine to become emperor of China
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The only woman to dare claim that title
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But China's female Emperor has gone down in history as a controversial and deeply divisive ruler
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To have a woman with such power
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really threatened the establishment
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Not only did Wu Zetian rock the boat in some ways. She overturned it
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It would have been a very dangerous thing to get in the way of Wu Zetian
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Since her death 1,300 years ago wu zetian has been remembered as a callous tyrant who brought calamity to china
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But now
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Extraordinary new discoveries are revealing a very different picture of her reign from ancient tombstones
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I've been waiting since this was excavated. I am ecstatic
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to Buddhist temples
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I honestly wasn't expecting that that is really exciting seeing this with your eyes is incredible experience
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Lost treasures have even more fantastic than I thought it would be
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Now for the first time experts are discovering how one woman managed to rule all the Imperial China
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And whether Wu Zetian really was an evil dictator or one of the most misunderstood leaders in history
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The only female emperor in China's 2,000 years of Imperial history was named Wu Zetian
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move the celestial
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She first entered court in 637 ad as a 13 year old concubine
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Part of the hareem of mistresses serving emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty
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Tang Taizong had more than a hundred concubines by repute. She was beautiful. She was charming. She was entertaining
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She also had a real zest for life
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Concubine Wu soon got herself noticed
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When she entered the palace
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She quickly gained favour of this emperor and her relationship of become closer and with the rise her of her influence at court
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and
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She proved to be politically very very skilful and she's very shrewd
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When the old Emperor died Wu Zetian became at first concubine to his son Gaozong
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Then in 655 he made her his Empress
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But emperor gaozong was a sickly man
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And gradually Wu became the real power behind the throne
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Until in 690 with her husband dead Wu Zetian stepped from the shadows and declared herself Emperor
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Yet China's ancient chroniclers were scathing in their accounts of her rise to power
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History tells us a really dark and bleak picture about Empress Wu
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One of the most brutal stories we have is that she killed her own child just to frame the previous Empress and
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gain station at court
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We're also told that Wu Zhao had her two
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Rivals legs and arms cut off and then dip them in a vat of wine and let them slowly bleed to death
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So this paints a picture of a devious
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manipulating
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calculating
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self-serving and absolutely ruthless Virago
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hell-bent on power
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Even after she claimed the throne we're told Wu Zetian was ruthless in her reign
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This is the tomb of Wu Zetian's second son Li Xian. He was a threat to his mother
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Li Xian was accused of treason and he was exiled to the most remote
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corner of the Chinese Empire locked in a room and
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forced to commit suicide by poisoning
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So this is a mother killing her own son so that she can hold on to power
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Wu Zetian led China for nearly 50 years
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According to legend she was a tyrant whose reign brought disaster to the Empire
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Now archaeologists run earthing new evidence the challenges this version of Wu's story
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The professor Zhang Jianlin is the world's leading archaeologists to the tang era
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Today the city of Xian has grown to encompass old Chang'an, Wu's capital
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The population of 12 million Xian is rapidly expanding
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It's also home to professor Zhang's conservation facility
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Historian dr. Harry Rothschild has heard about some intriguing recent finds that date to Wu's rein. Whoa
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It's amazing seeing all these Tang artifacts
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I've been studying Wu Zhao, Wu Zetian for 17 years and finally here
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We are at Ground Zero you can sense her everywhere here in Chang'an
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The figurines show life in Wu's capital the musicians traders and nobles buried with the dead to ensure a comfortable
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afterlife
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but there's also something unexpected here a
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first clue to what Wu's China was really like
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So we're looking at an unprecedented boost for the position of women
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you're talking about a female Emperor here after all and and so that
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Translated directly in this sort of greater opportunity and greater freedom for women in the late 7th in early 8th century
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It seems like there may be more to Wu Zetian that meets the eye
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Ancient chroniclers denigrated her reign
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But many recent tomb discoveries like the women in men's clothing hinted a rather different story
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Professor Tonia Eckfeld is an expert on Tang era tombs
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She's on her way to see one of the most amazing archaeological finds in all Chinese history
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It's amazing it's even more fantastic than I thought it would be
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This is the fabled Phoenix crown of ancient China a
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long-lost treasure from the Tang era
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written about in ancient texts, but never seen
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until now
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This priceless headdress is held under lock and key and can only be viewed by special appointment
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Tonia believes that is a vital clue to the truth about Wu Zetian's China
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There's an enormous amount to investigate in this piece
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Looking closely the metal work is filigree, and there's a lot of granulation
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Granulation consists of tiny little beads of gold
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The whole crown is like a peacock displaying its tail
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There are very very fine flowers made of mother-of-pearl and pearl. There are even fine bunches of grapes made of Chinese glass
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So really what we see here is something
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cosmopolitan and something rich
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something fashionable full of
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luxury items not only in the making of it, but also in the imagery involved
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Professors Jung's team found the Phoenix crown in a grave that was already in exceptional find, a tomb that had never been raided
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Inside was a skeleton and on the skull the beehive hairstyle
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studded with jewels
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The skeleton was of a young woman named Li Chui a minor descendant of the Tang royal family
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For 18 months the team carefully picked out every single jewel and stone
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Slowly piecing together the headdress to reveal its true glory
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But when they used x-ray chromatography to discover where the different jewels and stones came from they were in for a surprise
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The headdress has carnelian from Uzbekistan
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2,900 miles to the west of Chang'an, garnet from India 3,000 miles southwest
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Amber from Iran 4,000 miles away and ivory from Sri Lanka
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4500 miles from Wu's capital
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The crown gives us clues about Wu Zetian's society. Life was rich. There's a lot of luxury
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It was a real high point in the arts
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What we can see here is the embodiment of all of the wealth and all of the treasure that the Tang court could attract
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Li Chui wasn't even a princess if she was buried wearing this priceless headdress
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Clear evidence of the extraordinary wealth of China at the time
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Her tomb holds one final secret
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She was buried with the Jade silkworm in her hand
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Another clue that reveals Wu's ambitions to make her China the wealthiest empire in the world
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In seventh century China a woman named Wu Zetian rose from lonely concubine to Empress
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With her husband, the Emperor's sick. She ruled the Empire in all but name
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Ancient chroniclers dismissed her reign as a time of calamity
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But today's experts think the truth may be very different
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In a tomb 50 miles northwest of wu's capital city, Chang'an
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Tonia Eckfeld is investigating murals that provide strong evidence of Wu's influence and power
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Here we can see a mural of foreign ambassadors coming to court
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Ambassadors came from far and wide in this mural we can see a Mongolian a Korean and a townshend monk
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perhaps from Rome or Syria
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There's a man from Xinjian from Greece and from Persia
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It's interesting because we can see that the The Ambassadors are in
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quite subservient positions their hands are clasped before them and
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Seem quite in awe of the situation
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The mural suggests that Wu Zetian was a respected international leader of her time
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I think Wu Zetian was a consummate politician
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she saw advantage in the use of
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diplomacy rather than warfare and led the society that was quite open and open to foreigners
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Many foreigners at high level beat a path to her door
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Recent research suggests that there were 25,000 foreigners living in Wu's Chang'an
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Many were traders and more than anything, they were after one Chinese product.
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Since the 4th millennium BC China had produced the finest quality silk
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By Wu's era the demand for Chinese silk had made it as valuable as gold
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The ancient trade routes of the Silk Road began in Chang'an spreading east and west linking China to other nations
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But by the mid 7th century bandits and robbers threatened to stop trade in its tracks
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new discoveries reveal Wu Zetian's master strain
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She built military outposts far into Central Asia securing safe passage all along the Silk routes
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Harry Rothschild has come to the very start of the Silk Road in Chang'an to find the latest archaeological evidence of trade in Wu's capital
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This is incredible. We've been allowed to come right down here into the Western market
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We're standing right on the edge of the canal
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looking right across into this square where you had all of these stalls arrayed where rows of iron mongers and butchers and
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tanner's and
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silversmiths, goldsmith's, calligraphy brush salesmen would be arrayed where you could find anything under the Sun
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If you get down closely here you can see
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Ruts that have been left in in the earth
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From the carts that went over this bridge you really feel the ambience of the Western market
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In Wu Zetian's Chang'an, the east and west markets marked the start of the silk road
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In the West market goods from lands to the west of Chang'an were bought and sold
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Silk Road trade not only made Wu's Empire wealthy it brought so many
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foreigners to China that her capital became one of the first truly
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cosmopolitan cities in the world. People from all across the world traveled to China and many chose to stay
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And this multicultural influence can still be felt in present day Xi'an
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We are walking along the Huimin street the Chinese Muslims street on the very heart of old
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Tang China and it is bustling it is vibrant. It is full of energy
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As you see by the milling bustle going on behind me now
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I think these are sugared figs or dried figs here
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these came from along the Silk Road from from Persia
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So this is a kind of wheat kernel candy
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and he's pulling this taffy then afterwards they'll take the taffy and they'll
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Roll it out with pumpkin seeds or with sesame seeds and then turn it into this hard candy
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The sesame came from Persia and the Middle East along the Silk Road
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So this is this is sort of the fruit of something that was trafficked thirteen hundred years ago during Wu Zetian's time
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It is good. I think in terms of the
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multiculturalism the vibrance the bustle the energy just the constant commercial buzz
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You have a great sense of what was going on during the time
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By 662 with her husband the Emperor ill Empress Wu Zetian was an effective control of the whole Chinese Empire
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Trade had brought wealth and luxury
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Evident from the valuable artifacts that have been found and Wu wanted to flaunt this to the rest of the world
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To do this she planned the expansion of the Imperial Palace on a scale never seen before
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When archaeologists first uncovered the foundations they were amazed by what they found
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This is one of the huge gated entrances rebuilt to scale on those very foundations
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This is Danfeng Gate the southern gate of Daming palace
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Just looking up at it it conjures a sense of awe
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For me
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It's a statement
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It provides a sense of Imperial grandeur
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It makes any one sort of standing before the gate feel a sense of their own smallness and insignificance
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Wu Zetian's Daming Palace was the largest in the world
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Completed in just three years the scale of the complex outshone anything anyone had ever seen
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Look at the size of Daming Palace
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This is twice as big as old pompeii
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It's five times bigger than the Forbidden City of the Ming and Qing Dynasty Emperor's it's twenty-two times the size of the Acropolis
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The scope the grand juror. It's it's absolutely staggering.
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You can read about it
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but you don't really appreciate that magnitude until you step out on this balcony and you look out at this vista
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There are archery grounds. There are polo grounds, cockfighting arenas,
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places for drama troops to practice and that's just the beginning. There are three or four more palaces beyond that
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Emissaries coming from foreign countries would come in with their jaws dropping with just a sort of starry-eyed
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wonder and they would feel like they were looking at a celestial world a paradise on earth.
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I do think that was about imposing her power with the majesty and size of Daming Palace
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But Harry thinks this place is unusual in more than just its extreme size
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Chang'an when it was first designed was the model of perfect Imperial symmetry
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The old Imperial Palace was in the north central position within the Tang capital Chang'an. This new Daming Palace
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was outside of the city walls altogether. It's very unusual to build a palace
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outside of this usual model of imperial symmetry
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there's one good reason for 12 years Wu Zhao had
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languished in the old imperial palace. For her,
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this was a chance to get a new start to distance herself from her lowly and obscure past as a fifth rank talent
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Here where you have this stunning new imperial grandeur
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was an opportunity to sort of reinvent herself
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It's becoming clear that Wu Zetian made China a global superpower
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Contrary to how the legends were written she was at the center of a web of trade
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wealth and political influence that stretched from Japan to the Mediterranean
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In the seventh century Wu Zetian's capital city Chang'an was in a class of its own
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So Chang'an during Wu Zetian's time would have been an absolutely massive city
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There's supposed to be almost a million people living within the city walls and another million outside
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which just outclasses anything else in the world at that time
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Jonathan Dugdale from Birmingham University thinks he knows one reason for Wu Zetian's remarkable success
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She would win the support of the common people through the reinvigorated religion that was sweeping China
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Buddhism
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Wu Zetian realized patronizing Buddhism was a great way to please the people and what better way than building new temples and pagodas
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So one of the main ones she built was this one right behind this the great wild goose pagoda
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The great goose pagoda was originally built in 652
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As someone who studied pagodas for a long time, this is
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particularly awesome
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The pagoda was an important temple housing sacred Buddhist writings
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But just 50 years after it was built. It was destroyed in an earthquake
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Wu, who had been brought up in the Buddhist faith spending time in a nunnery,
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decided to rebuild the pagoda but on a much bigger scale
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Jonathan suspects that this new building was a record breaker and
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that Wu surpassed herself in her desire to make her mark in her people's faith
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And he thinks he can prove it.
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I would really like to find out how tall this building was when Wu Zetian rebuilt it
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Because it'd be really interesting if she's decided to build it significantly bigger for a reason
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But first he has a problem to solve. Wu Zetian's pagoda was partially damaged by a second earthquake
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The top three floors toppled
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So Jonathan has to work out how high her structure would have been with the missing floors
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onwards and upwards
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One two Okay that's 40 steps for that one and that put us on the fourth floor now
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35, 36, 37, 38
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One two three...
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He's found a pattern in the number of steps
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Previous floors we've gone from 43 to 40 to 38 37. So for the next floor is either 37 or 36
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We should make an accurate calculation
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34, 35, 36, 37
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This is good, we're still decreasing so this is good we might be able to do something last