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You're Dead to Me

The Terracotta Army (Radio Edit)

You're Dead to Me

BBC

Comedy, History

4.711.8K Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2026

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Greg Jenner is joined in Ancient China by Professor Julia Lovell and special guest Phil Wang for a close look at The Terracotta Army.

In 1974, a family of farmers made arguably the greatest archaeological discovery of all time when they uncovered arrowheads and fragments of terracotta whilst digging a well. Join us as we examine one of the most astounding mausoleum sites in the world - one so large that much of it still remains to be explored.

This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.

Research by Jon Mason Written by Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner with Jon Mason Produced by Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner Assistant Producer: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow Project Management: Isla Matthews Audio Producer: Abi Paterson

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

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0:32.5

Football from Five Live, listen only on BBC Sound.

0:37.7

Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously.

0:43.1

My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster, and former chief nerd on the BBC comedy show, Horrible Histories.

0:50.2

And today we are off to ancient China to dig deep into one of the most astonishing archaeological discoveries of all time, the first emperor of China's tomb guarded by his famous terracotta warriors.

1:02.0

And to help me do that, I am joined by two very special guests.

1:05.2

In History Corner, she's professor of modern Chinese history and literature at Birkbeck, University of London,

1:10.6

and specializes in the relationship between culture and modern Chinese nation building. She Birkbeck, University of London, and specialises

1:11.4

in the relationship between culture and modern Chinese nation building. She's written countless

1:15.2

academic publications and several books, including two prize-winning books on the Opium War and

1:20.1

Maoism. It's the fantastic Professor Julia Lovell. Welcome, Julia. Thrilled to have you here.

1:24.7

It's great to be here. Thanks so much for inviting me. And in Comedy Corner, not only has he previously bossed it on Taskmaster, Live at the Apollo and Have I Got News for you, but he's got a hilarious stand-up special on Netflix. It's Philly Fili-Fi-Wang. Welcome back, Phil. Hi, great thanks having me back. Yes, don't forget the last Wang. It is very important. I'm so happy to be back on your debt to me. And last time out, we talked a bit about your education

1:47.2

at the last whang. It is very important. I'm so happy to be back on, you're dead to me. And last time out, we talked a bit about your education, the Malaysian school system. You hadn't done that much global history. But I'm curious as to whether the First Emperor of China, the Terracotta Warriors, may be something you do know about. Only sort of culturally speaking, because my father's Chinese-Malaysian, and so there is an awareness of China and

2:01.0

Chinese histories as sort of a kind of motherland, but we still don't know the history

2:07.1

all that well, actually.

2:08.2

So what Chinese-Malajians know about Chinese history is usually what they pick up in,

...

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