Chinese puzzle

When it was opened to the public in 1989, the dig containing 68 warriors, a war chariot and four horses, looked to be the command centre of the armed forces comprising the Terracotta Army. But these were only the latest of more than 8,000 pottery soldiers, horses, chariots and weapons that have been unearthed in Lintong, Xi’an, in China’s Shaanxi Province.

The adventure began in 1974, when a group of peasants uncovered pottery while digging a well near the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor to rule over all of China. The discovery grabbed the attention of archaeologists around the world, who came to Xi’an in droves to study and to extend the dig. Their efforts established beyond doubt that the artefacts were from the Qin Dynasty (211-206 BCE).

The Terracotta Warriors and Horses that were subsequently uncovered – and extensively restored to their former grandeur – are now one of the most significant archaeological excavations of the 20th century, and have been dubbed The Eighth Wonder of the World.

As well as building the Great Wall of China and building a collection of great works of art, Emperor Qin Shi Huang pursued a quest for the secret of immortality. It took 70,000 workers to build his tomb, which was filled with treasures and protected by the 8,000 life-size clay warriors. His 3,000 wives and concubines followed him to the grave…

The soldiers are a reminder of how the imperial guard would have looked like in their heyday, and are arranged in battle formations. Today, they are the star features of the museum that has been built at Emperor Qin’s Mausoleum. Covering an area of 16,300-sq-m, the museum is divided into three sections named Pit 1, Pit 2 and Pit 3, constructed on the sites of the first and subsequent discoveries. Pit 1 is the largest, opened on China’s National Day in 1979, and is housed in a hangar-like building. The sites of Pit 2 and Pit 3 were established in 1976, with Pit 3 opened to the public in 1989 and Pit 2 – containing more than 1,000 warriors and 90 wooden chariots – following in1994.

As well as marking the 35th anniversary of the discovery of the Terracotta Army, 2009 saw the beginning of an ambitious project to provide a wide-reaching digital audio system. For this, Wincomn Technology proposed a design based on a Klotz Digital Vadis matrix router platform. The system serves the whole of the museum site, which has been divided into eight audio zones covering Pit 1, Pit 2, Pit 3, the Garden, the North Gate entrance, East Gate exit, Antique Building and Office Building, providing broadcast calls, background music, system monitoring, the fire warning system, fire prevention and other functions throughout. 

The project began to take shape when the museum approached Wincomn Technology in April 2008 to discuss a background music, voice evacuation and announcement system. Having considered systems offered by a number of other major companies, the choice of a Klotz Digital Varizone solution is put down to ‘a good proposal and a good relationship,’ by Wincomn’s Ian Li, the company’s general manager for sound and public address, and the man responsible for the system design.

Founded in 1996, Wincomn Technology specialises in providing advanced A/V systems to its Chinese customer base, and keeps close track of international A/V developments and their application in the Chinese market. With 10 years’ technical experience derived from a variety of high-profile projects, Wincomn has earned a comprehensive knowledge of system integration and professional technical support.

Working closely with Mr Xu and Mr Zhang, who were responsible for the project implementation on behalf of the museum, Wincomn Technology began the installation in July 2009, and took two months to complete it.

The system handles the audio routing around the eight zones of the museum site, transmitting eight sound sources to the required zones and linking into an existing fire evacuation system. Along with the Vadis matrix itself, key system components include calling stations, 70V/100V power amplifiers and loudspeakers.

‘Through the Klotz Digital graphical interface, operators can route a playout to specific zones and monitor the source of sound and the output,’ Mr Li explains. ‘They can also control gain and monitor the functional mode of the system, as well as the calling stations in specific zones. The software can provide the fire alarm, linking with the fire prevention system by transmitting to the alarm zone after receiving a trigger signal, and logging the system according to the relevant logic settings.’

Along with its functionality, the installation of the system added to its appeal to the museum. ‘By adopting Cat5 cables and optical-fibre cabling, the Klotz Digital Octo-bus structure technology means that the system doesn’t need many cables, so it was easy to lay the cables for the system,’ Mr Li says.

Operating as a star or as a daisy-chained audio network without the need for routers or hubs, the synchronous protocol used by Octo-bus allows simultaneous transmission of up to eight channels of bidirectional digital audio over Cat5, including control data and system monitoring without any audible latency. In addition, the Terracotta Museum project represented the first use of the DSS digital loudspeaker bus in China, also optimising cable requirements.

While the installation was undertaken jointly by Wincomn Technology and the museum’s own staff, Klotz Digital played its part in providing the necessary technical support, which extended to solving initial bus problems through the addition of a power bridge.

‘The fact that the Klotz Digital public address system has been used successfully in such a high-profile installation as the Chinese Terracotta Warrior Museum, fully displays the strength of its features – concise layout of cabling, security, stability, ease of installation and support of subzones,’ Mr Li concludes.

Wincomn Technology, China: +86 10 6785 6868 827

www.wincomn.com.cn