Wooden Tablets Verify China's First Emperor’s Obsession with Immortality

New archaeological finds shed light on Qin Shi Huang’s (first Emperor of China) quest for eternal life. According to 2000-year-old texts written on thousands of wooden slats, the Chinese Emperor did everything in his power to discover the elixir of immortality.

Wooden Slips Reveal the Extent of Qin Shi Huang’s Hunt of Immortality

The pursuit of immortality and eternal life has been the subject of exploration for many people throughout the centuries, but unfortunately none of them managed to live forever. One of them was Qin Shi Huang, founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of a unified China. His public works projects included the unification of diverse state walls into a single Great Wall of China and a massive new national road system, as well as the city-sized mausoleum guarded by the life-sized Terracotta Army. He ruled until his death in 210 BC after an intense search for an elixir of immortality.

Great Wall of China near Jinshanling was commissioned by Qin Shi Huang. (CC BY-SA 3.0)