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Grand Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor
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In addition to building grand palaces, almost all Chinese emperors spent lavishly on their own tombs, filling them with everything their heart desired, to ensure their afterlife was as sumptuous as their here and now.
Qin Shi Huang (259-210 BC), the first emperor who united China, was no exception. Qin Shi Huang means literally the First Emperor of Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC).
Besides ordering construction of the Great Wall and magnificent palaces, the emperor also built a city-sized mausoleum for himself.
Today, his mausoleum and thousands of life-sized terracotta warriors that served as its garrison are still standing 30 kilometers east of Xi’an, the ancient capital in northwest China. They attract millions of visitors every year.
Historical records show that construction of the mausoleum began in 246 BC and it took 700,000 men and 39 years to complete the project.
The mausoleum covered 56 square kilometers, 78 times the size of Forbidden City in Beijing. The tomb mound made of rammed earth used to be as high as 115 meters; today it stands 76 meters high.
The mausoleum’s layout copied the Qin capital Xianyang, with two long walls dividing it into the inner city and the outer city. The inner city wall is estimated at 3,890 meters and the outer one 6,250 meters. Both walls are eight to 10 meters high.
Although the tomb itself hasn’t been excavated, archeologists using remote sensing and other technology have determined that the rectangular underground palace hall is 170 meters long east to west and 145 meters wide south to north. It’s about 15 meters high and buried 35 meters under the ground surface.
Historians say the mausoleum has a sophisticated water drainage system to dam and divert underground water and protect the tomb itself.
It is also said that large amounts of mercury had been used to create man-made rivers and seas in the underground palace complex. In addition, the extensive necropolis contains many sites, that themselves contain hundreds of thousands of funerary objects.
In January 1974, a farmer was digging a well 1.5 kilometers east of the mausoleum, when he struck the head of a terracotta warrior. That adventitious discovery led to one of the world’s greatest archeological finds of modern times.
Altogether more than 1,000 life-sized figures were found. There were also horses, archers and chariots. No two warriors look alike and each has a different facial expression.
It is believed that the craftsmen had modeled the warriors on real soldiers.
In December 1980, two large colorfully decorated bronze chariots were unearthed in a pit to the west of the tomb mound.
They are considered the oldest and exquisitely-crafted bonze chariots ever excavated in China.
Since the mid-1970s, Chinese scholars and archeologists have been debating the issue of excavating the mausoleum itself.
Some argue that exploration of the underground palace would provide invaluable insight into the 2,000-year-old imperial tomb, promote tourism and prevent grave robbery. Others argue that at this time China lacks the necessary technology to protect the underground palace and preserve the trove of relics.
They point out that scientists today are still unable to preserve the original colors of the terracotta warriors after they are exposed to air.
In 1987, the mausoleum, together with the terracotta warriors, was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
封土 (feng tu) Grave Mound
The grave mound tradition is believed to began more than 2,500 years ago in China.
It is said that Confucius (551-479 BC) lost his father when he was only three years old. When he grew up elsewhere and returned to visit his home village, he couldn’t find his father’s grave at first. To make it easier to locate in the future, Confucius built an 1.2-meter-high earth mound over the grave after he eventually found the spot with help of other villagers.
According to feudal hierarchy, the heights of the mounds and the types of trees planted around grave mounds varied and depended on the status of the departed.
The shape of grave mounds of imperial mausoleum changed from a flat-topped pyramid in the Qin and Han dynasties to a round or oval-shaped bun protected by a brick wall in Ming and Qing dynasties.
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