Making Terracotta Warriors' Weapons

choi

Jennifer Pinkowski, Chinese Terra Cotta Warriors Had Real, and Very Carefully Made, Weapons. Washington Post, Nov 26, 2012.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/na ... 87b7e56c_story.html

Quote:

"Although the polished arrowheads seem identical to the human eye, X-ray fluorescence revealed that discrete batches of the copper-tin alloys bore unique chemical signatures. Each batch bore its own mix of copper, tin and lead. Different batches were found throughout the site, suggesting that multiple workshops were operating at the same time.  

University of Michigan's engineering professor Jeffrey "Liker said, the distinction between Fordism and Toyotism in Qin’s weapons workshops was less notable than the fact that characteristics we associate with modern mass production — standardization, quality control, flow — were present at all.

Note:
(a) The report cites

Martinón-Torres M et al, Forty Thousand Arms for a Single Emperor; From chemical data to thelLabor organization bBehind the bronze arrows of the terracotta army. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, published online before print in October 2012 (doi: 10.1007/s10816-012-9158-z).
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10816-012-9158-z
(b) A similar report:

Enrico de Lazaro , Toyota’s Labor Model Used in China 2,200 Years Ago. Sci-news.com, Nov 2, 2012.