The Maoling () or Mao Mausoleum is the

mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be consid ...

Emperor Wu of Han Emperor Wu of Han (156 – 29 March 87BC), formally enshrined as Emperor Wu the Filial (), born Liu Che (劉徹) and courtesy name Tong (通), was the seventh emperor of the Han dynasty of ancient China, ruling from 141 to 87 BC. His reign la ...

(157–87 BCE) located in

Xingping Xingping () is a city located in the center part of Shaanxi province, China. It has been a city since 1993, with a total area of 496 square kilometers and a population of 620,000. The annual average temperature is and its annual precipitation o ...

Shaanxi Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see #Name, § Name) is a landlocked Provinces of China, province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichu ...

, China, about 40 km to the west of the provincial capital of

Xi'an Xi'an ( , ; ; Chinese: ), frequently spelled as Xian and also known by #Name, other names, is the list of capitals in China, capital of Shaanxi, Shaanxi Province. A Sub-provincial division#Sub-provincial municipalities, sub-provincial city o ...

. Maoling is one of the

Western Han dynasty imperial tombs The Western Han dynasty imperial tombs (西汉帝陵; Xīhàn dìlíng) are a series of eleven imperial burial grounds from the Chinese Western Han Dynasty (206 BC–24 AD) in Shaanxi Province. Two of the emperor's mausoleums are located southeast ...

Background

Construction of the tomb began in 139 BC, the second year in the reign of Emperor WuXianyao Li, Zhewen Luo: China's Museums, Cambridge University Press, 2011
/ref> and took 53 years until completion upon the emperor's death. About one third of the court's annual revenue from taxes and tributes was used towards construction of the tomb. Maoling is the largest in a group of more than 20 tombs. The smaller tombs surrounding it belong to former members of Emperor Wu's court, such as Lady Li, the emperor's favorite concubine, and the military strategist

Huo Qubing Huo Qubing (140 BC – 117 BC) was a Chinese military general and politician of the Western Han dynasty during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han. He was the nephew of the general Wei Qing and Empress Wei Zifu (Emperor Wu's wife), and the half-brot ...

(died 117 BCE). The town of Maoling was created during the construction of the tomb.History of Maoling, the tomb of wudi at Xi'an
''Monument-tracker.com'' (accessed on 24 June 2019) The artifacts found in Wu's tomb are now in the Maoling Museum. The museum exhibits 4,100 cultural objects and 14 historical relics. The golden horse of Maoling, the largest gilded horse ever found in China, was discovered in 1981 by farmers in a field nearby the mausoleum. In 1985, geophysical explorations of the area led to the discovery of gold deposits in and around the mausoleum's soils, estimated to be deposits from

proterozoic The Proterozoic () is a geological eon spanning the time interval from 2500 to 538.8million years ago. It is the most recent part of the Precambrian "supereon". It is also the longest eon of the Earth's geologic time scale, and it is subdivided ...

sedimentary rocks. In 2009, restoration of the site began. The Chinese authorities aimed at preserving as much as possible the original construction material, but admitted that at least half of that material will be replaced because it was in poor conditions. In 2014, the Shaanxi Conservation Institute and the

Wuhan University Wuhan University (WHU; ) is a public research university in Wuhan, Hubei. The university is sponsored by the Ministry of Education. Wuhan university was founded as one of the four elite universities in the early republican period of China and i ...

led a joint surveillance study on the site.Maoling to be renovated
''Chinadaily.com'', 30 December 2014 (accessed on 26 June 2019)

Description

The tomb is the largest of all tombs built during the Han Dynasty. It is also well known as "Great White Pyramid" since

U.S. Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical ri ...

pilot James Gaussman saw it as "a white jewel-topped pyramid during a flight between India and China during World War II" (see

Chinese pyramids The term Chinese pyramids refers to pyramidal shaped structures in China, most of which are ancient mausoleums and burial mounds built to house the remains of several early emperors of China and their imperial relatives. About 38 of them are loca ...

).Charles George: Pyramids, ReferencePoint Press, Inc. 2008
/ref> It is a

trapezoid A quadrilateral with at least one pair of parallel sides is called a trapezoid () in American and Canadian English. In British and other forms of English, it is called a trapezium (). A trapezoid is necessarily a Convex polygon, convex quadri ...

tumulus A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones buil ...

built from rammed earth with a rectangular base which measures and a height of . File:Maoling.JPG, Main building. File:Golden_Horse_of_Maoling,_Liverpool.jpg, The golden horse of Maoling, exhibited in Liverpool.

References

{{reflist Han dynasty architecture Buildings and structures in Xi'an Mausoleums in China Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Shaanxi Tourist attractions in Xi'an

Background

Description

See also

References