Han Yang Ling: The Western Han Mausoleum Complex of Emperor Jing
Site at a Glance
- Rating
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- Country
- China
- Primary era
- Classical
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical
- Civilizations
- Han
- Site type
- Burial
- Remains
- Necropolis
On this page24 sections
History
Han Yang Ling is the Western Han mausoleum complex of Emperor Jing and Empress Wang in Weicheng, Xianyang, China. Construction began in 153 BCE during Emperor Jing’s reign, and the complex developed as an imperial funerary center with a settlement, ritual buildings, associated cemeteries, and burial areas. Emperor Jing was the sixth emperor of the Western Han dynasty, which ruled much of China from 202 BCE to 9 CE and again from 25 to 220 CE.
Foundation during Emperor Jing’s reign
In 153 BCE, the settlement at the site was renamed from Yiyang to Yangling. Construction of the mausoleum and its associated settlement, Yanglingyi, began in the same year. Residents were recruited and moved to Yanglingyi with financial payments, linking the construction of the imperial complex to the creation of a planned population center. Work continued for about 28 years, from the beginning of construction until the burial of Empress Wang.
The mausoleum formed part of the Western Han imperial burial landscape traditionally known as the dynasty’s Five Mausoleums. It occupies the Xianyang Plain between the Jing and Wei rivers, east of the other Western Han imperial mausoleums on the plain and beside the mausoleum of Emperor Gaozu, Liu Bang. Its territory extended across parts of Weicheng, Jingyang, and Gaoling.
Burials of the imperial couple
Emperor Jing died at his Weiyang residence in 141 BCE. He was buried at Yangling in February of the following year. His tomb and that of Empress Wang occupied the same mausoleum precinct but remained separate burial chambers, a funerary arrangement in which one imperial complex contained distinct tombs for the ruler and empress.
Empress Wang died in 126 BCE, fifteen years after her husband, and was then buried beside him within the precinct. The complex also accommodated burials connected with the imperial household, including relatives, consorts, selected court attendants, and other people associated with the court and its afterlife establishment.
Later damage and archaeological investigation
After the fall of the Xin dynasty, the Red Eyebrow army entered Chang’an and destroyed imperial tombs and ancestral temple grounds. Yangling was affected by this period of upheaval, although the extent of damage to the mausoleum itself is not specified.
Archaeological investigation began in the early 1970s. In 1972, the Shaanxi History Museum found burial remains in an area disturbed by earthworks. Xianyang Municipal Museum archaeologists identified the emperor’s and empress’s tombs and several associated burials in 1978, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences resumed investigation in 1980.
Between May 1990 and October 1994, work directed by the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute uncovered two burials and architectural remains. The discoveries became one of China’s largest richly furnished burial finds and were included among the country’s ten major archaeological discoveries of the 1990s. Further work in 1995 exposed the southern gate of the main enclosure wall and medium-sized and small burial pits. Excavations in 1998 examined more than ten outer pits, while work in 2004 investigated clustered burial pits, associated cemetery areas, and ritual buildings.
Yangling became a major protected cultural site of Shaanxi in 1963. In 2001, it was included among the Western Han imperial tombs in the fifth group of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units. The Han Yang Ling Museum received national first-class museum status in 2008. Excavated areas and finds are preserved and presented in the museum and in conservation buildings at the site.
The excavations produced approximately 50,000 relics and fragments made of bronze, iron, gold, jade, stone, pottery, lacquer, wood, bone, shell, silk, and hemp. Plant remains included wheat, millet, beans, and sweet potatoes. Together, these materials illuminate the Western Han court, military organization, domestic life, ritual practice, and wider material culture. Tea remains dating to the second century BCE provide physical evidence that tea was consumed at court during Emperor Jing’s period.
Remains
Han Yang Ling covers approximately 12 square kilometers, extending about 6 kilometers from east to west and between 1 and 3 kilometers from north to south. Its principal elements include the emperor’s and empress’s mounds, clustered burial-pit zones, ritual buildings, aristocratic cemeteries, a convict cemetery, ancestral or temple structures, and the settlement of Yanglingyi. The complex follows a highly symmetrical plan centered on the emperor’s mound, with buildings and burial areas aligned along east-west axes and arranged in parallel north-south lines.
Imperial tombs and enclosures
Emperor Jing’s mound
The emperor’s burial mound forms the central feature of the complex. It faces east and rises approximately 31 meters in the shape of a truncated pyramid, with sloping sides and a level top. The sides of its base measure about 167.5 to 168.5 meters. A sealed entrance lies at the center. The mound is surrounded by 81 radiating outer burial pits, while 86 narrow tunnels containing funerary figurines approach or surround the mound area.
Empress Wang’s mound
Empress Wang’s mound stands about 450 meters east of the emperor’s. It is an east-facing truncated pyramid approximately 25.5 meters high, with a base about 160 meters on each side and a height also given as 26.49 meters. A sealed entrance lies at the center. The square enclosure around it measures approximately 347.5 to 350 meters per side and was built from rammed earth, a technique using compressed layers of damp earth. Gates opened in all four cardinal directions, while the corners had no watchtowers.
Enclosure walls and ceremonial road
The emperor’s and empress’s enclosures had rammed-earth walls about 3 to 3.5 meters thick. Each had three pairs of adjacent gates and no corner watchtowers. The emperor’s southern gate was the principal gate and has been excavated and protected. East of the emperor’s mound, the simadao, or principal ceremonial road, formed the main processional route through the complex. Associated burials were arranged in a checkerboard pattern on both sides.
Tunnels and outer burial pits
Approach tunnels
The 86 narrow tunnels associated with the emperor’s mound range from 4 to 100 meters in length. Some had paved floors and wooden supports. Tunnel 13 is rectangular, approximately 92 meters long, 3 meters wide, and 3 meters high, with wooden supports and a depth of about 8 meters. Tunnels 11 and 19 measure about 74 and 20 meters respectively.
Animal figurines
Excavation before the emperor’s mound found animal figurines arranged in four sections. One seven-meter area contained 235 black and orange goat figures. Another seven-meter section held 458 dogs in yellow, white, black, gray, and orange, including mastiff-like and ordinary forms; some had red-painted mouths and noses. An eight-meter section contained 33 black and pink sheep arranged in six rows. Its southern half held black and white piglet figures in two rows, separated by wooden boards. These animals belonged to a funerary world in which domestic creatures could represent court resources and the ordered universe surrounding the dead.
Burial pits 11 and 19
Burial pit 11 covers approximately 24 square meters. It contained 26 ceramic warrior figures arranged in four columns facing the eastern mausoleum gate, with their backs toward the emperor’s mound. Seventeen painted wooden horses, four wooden chariots, bronze and iron weapons, and several hundred pieces of horse and chariot equipment completed the modeled military scene. Wooden chariots stood between successive columns of warriors.
Only about 12 square meters of burial pit 19 was excavated. It contained four wooden horses, one wooden chariot, 20 unusual warrior figures, ten ceramic animals, bronze and iron weapons, horse and chariot equipment, and about 30 ceramic vessels. The horses occupied the front, followed by the chariot. Warriors stood in lines on both sides, while animals and vessels occupied the rear flanks.
Office and administrative imagery
The outer pits appear to imitate Han administrative offices. Pit 12, east of the emperor’s mound, contained a seal associated with the Imperial Clan Superintendent and dozens of horse-and-chariot fittings that probably represented a wooden vehicle model. Pit 17 held a seal associated with a eunuch official, and pit 21 contained a seal associated with the Director of the Eastern Weaving Office. These seals, together with vehicle equipment and other modeled contents, connect the burial pits with the organization of the imperial court.
Associated burial zones
Northern and southern military pits
The northern and southern clustered burial-pit zones lie approximately 450 meters southeast and northwest of the emperor’s mound. Each contains 24 pits. Their vertical shafts and underground tunnels vary in length and width. The longest is about 299 meters, the widest about 10 meters, and the usual depth is 7 to 8 meters, with roughly 20 meters between neighboring pits. Their predominantly military contents have led archaeologists to interpret them as representations of the Western Han southern and northern armies.
Warrior figures from these associated burials wear clay armor and carry shields and tridents. They survived especially well compared with many figures made for the imperial pits, whose textile clothing and wooden arms decayed. A burial south of the simadao gate passage, numbered 97GYM130, contained a bronze seal inscribed “Zhou Ying.” The tomb is therefore provisionally associated with the Marquis of Dan, Zhou Ying.
Northeastern and southern associated burials
Five northeastern burials were arranged in a north-south line. They average 3 to 4 meters in width; the largest reaches approximately 100 meters in depth, while the average depth is about 4 meters. South of the empress’s mound, associated burials cover approximately 9,600 square meters and include 14 east-west columns of pits. Individual pits are generally about 25 meters long, although some reach 291 meters, are approximately 4 meters wide, and stand about 20 meters apart.
Aristocratic cemeteries
The northern aristocratic cemetery lies about 600 meters north of the emperor’s mound. It includes two surviving large east-west tombs with a middle-character-shaped plan, earthen mounds, and 12 surrounding burial pits. The eastern cemetery extends about 2.5 kilometers from east to west and 1.5 kilometers from north to south. It contains more than 200 cemetery groups, over 10,000 identified burials, and more than 2,000 excavated burials.
Ritual buildings and Yanglingyi
Western ritual complex
The first major group of ritual-building remains lies approximately 450 meters southwest of the emperor’s mound. Its enclosure measures about 320 meters east to west and 210 meters north to south. The remains include a ditch, walls and wall foundations, column bases, courtyards, a large building, roof tiles, and pottery figurines.
Southeastern ritual complex
A second major ritual complex lies about 300 meters southeast of the emperor’s mound within a square enclosure approximately 260 meters on each side. It has inner and outer zones, an outer ditch, corner corridor buildings, and passageways at the centers of its sides. The central building measures about 53.7 meters per side. Its rammed-earth platform is higher inside than outside and includes a central pillar stone, a brick-paved corridor, and a drainage or paving strip known as the “compass stone.”
Yanglingyi settlement
Yanglingyi lay east of the mausoleum and covered about 4.5 square kilometers. Its plan included 11 east-west streets, 31 north-south streets, and more than 200 residential wards. A main street divided the settlement into a northern administrative sector and a southern residential sector, reflecting the organized population center established alongside the imperial tomb.
Figurines, weapons, and court equipment
The excavated figures include men and women, warriors, officials, servants, musicians, dancers, charioteers, eunuchs, and domestic animals. Human figures appear standing, crouching, reclining, dancing, playing instruments, driving chariots, or holding objects. Painted ceramic animals include pigs, cattle, horses, sheep, fish, and chickens.
Many distinctive human figures are nude because their original silk or textile clothing, armor, and movable wooden arms decayed. They are generally about 55 to 60 centimeters high and originally had painted faces, bodies, hair, and garments. Male and female figures, eunuchs, infantrymen, and cavalrymen occur in this group, with some cavalry figures originally accompanied by wooden horses.
Other figures had clothing modeled directly in clay and then painted. They include long-robed civil officials, two types of female attendants, musicians, and dancers. Some attendants wear ankle-length robes and hold their hands together, while others wear knee-length garments and originally held objects that have decayed. The instruments held by musician figures have also disappeared.
The figures were made through several stages. Clay was prepared and purified, heads, torsos, arms, and legs were molded, smaller features were attached, and the figures were fired and painted before a second firing. Wooden hands and arms were then added. Hair, eyebrows, and beards were painted dark brown, while faces and torsos were painted orange. Craftspeople used hand modeling, potter’s wheels, and combinations of clay and wood. The surviving sculptures range from still poses to energetic dancers whose gestures and curved bodies convey movement.
Burial goods include reduced-scale bronze and iron weapons, such as an iron spearhead about 17 centimeters long, an iron sword measuring 36 centimeters, an iron halberd about 5 centimeters long, and a bronze arrowhead about 3 centimeters long. Bronze coins, weights, belt hooks, and measuring vessels imitated Han originals and were not functional weapons. Functional bronze vessels included a bell about 43 centimeters high with an inscription, as well as dou vessels, ladles, and incense burners. Roof tiles, bronze mirrors, and jade objects were also found.
Conservation and presentation buildings
The archaeological exhibition center south of the emperor’s and empress’s mounds is a two-level, semi-subterranean building of approximately 3,750 square meters. It presents material from the complex, including finds from the ritual buildings, the emperor’s outer pits, and associated cemeteries. A fully underground conservation and exhibition hall northeast of the emperor’s mound protects and displays eastern pits 12 to 21. The hall was established at the original location in 2006 after ten outer pits were excavated in 1998. Glass walls and walkways separate the displayed remains from the public.
Protective buildings also cover the southern gate and the remains of ancestral-temple structures. Together with the museum, these facilities preserve parts of the mausoleum’s architecture and the objects that reveal how the Western Han court represented its administration, military, households, animals, and ritual world in the burial complex.
