By MARSHA MERCER
If you think your tweets will be your key to
immortality, think again.
The Library of Congress, which has collected every
single public tweet published for the last dozen years, keeping billions upon
billions of our instantaneous utterings, has hoisted the white flag.
As of New Year’s Day, it will acquire tweets only “on
a very selective basis.”
The library will preserve its massive tweet trove but doesn’t
know how or when it may allow public access.
People say nothing on the internet ever dies, but the
quest for immortality in the digital age evidently will remain almost as
elusive as it was for the first emperor of China more than 2000 years ago.
Someday people may pore over tweets to learn about our
culture – oh, no! -- the way crowds in Richmond ponder relics of ancient China
at a spectacular exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
“Terracotta Army: Legacy of the First Emperor of
China” provides a glimpse of one man’s attempt to cheat death. A richly illustrated
exhibit catalog helps piece together the remarkable story, and I draw on the
catalog’s details here.
More than 200 years before the birth of Christ, Ying
Zeng became the king of the Qin State at the age of 13 in 246 B.C. By 221 B.C.,
he had united the seven warring states and proclaimed himself emperor of all
China, Qin Shi Huang. He claimed his dynasty would last 10,000 generations.
Even before he became China’s first emperor, though, he
was obsessed with immortality. A history says Qin Shi Huang deployed 700,000
slave laborers for three decades to create a huge underground kingdom.
The subterranean kingdom stretched 38 square miles and
included a palace, armory, entertainment areas, stables for horse-drawn
chariots and large burial pits.
Nearly 8,000 horses and warriors made of clay and
vividly painted would protect him in the afterlife where he planned to continue
his reign.
The first emperor invented centralized government,
built highways and connected existing walls into what would become part of the
Great Wall. He instituted a common currency, system of weights and measures and
script for writing.
His tyrannical reign depended on strict laws; he had
books burned and scholars killed.
Wielding such power, he must have thought finding a
cure for death was in the realm of the possible.
His underground kingdom lay hidden until 1974 when
farmers came across a terracotta head. The archaeological find was one of the
most consequential of the 20th century.
Archaeologists have excavated only about 20 percent of
the underground world. Untouched is the emperor’s burial chamber, which history
says was constructed to mimic the country’s landscape with flowing rivers of
poisonous mercury.
The emperor’s mausoleum
site museum was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.
The terracotta army exhibit in Richmond includes
life-size clay figures of an armored general and several other military men,
each individualized with a different face, hairstyle and uniform.
Besides building his underground kingdom, the emperor
also ordered search parties on long voyages to mythical destinations to find
the elixir of life. Just-released 2,000-year-old correspondence on wooden slats
shows provincials reported on promising herbs and minerals from local
mountains.
Today our quest to cheat, or at least delay, death
continues, although along more scientific lines.
People restrict calories in hopes of extending life. Some
resort to cryogenic freezing after death in hopes their bodies will be revived
later. Researchers explore promising enzymes and gene therapies.
Last spring, the National Academy of Medicine
announced it was developing a Grand Challenge in Healthy Longevity that will
award at least $25 million for scientific advancements in extending healthy
life.
Meanwhile, we can learn from Qin Shi Huang, whose dynasty
didn’t last anything close to 10,000 generations and whose quest for eternal
life probably killed him.
He reigned for 11 years and died at age 49, reportedly
after taking mercury pills that were supposed to make him immortal. His dynasty
ended less than four years after his death.
The desire to live forever may be immortal, but the
terracotta army exhibit in Richmond ends March 11. Tweet about it, if you like.
Just don’t miss it.
©2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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