Archeologists have unraveled the mysterious plan of the
Qin Shi
Huang Mausoleum, the 2,200-year-old structure which is famous
as the home of 7,000 terracotta horses and warriors.
Located in Xi'an in northwest China's
Shaanxi Province, the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum is the tomb of
Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty
(221BC-207BC) and also of China.
Covering 2.13 square kilometers, the four-layered mausoleum, like a
well-structured city, includes an underground palace, which is the
center of the mausoleum, an inner city, outer city and grounds.
"The revelation of the structure is the greatest achievement in the
study of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum in the past 40 years," said
Yuan Zhongyi, an expert on the mausoleum and honorary curator of
the Museum of Qin
Terracotta Horses and Warriors.
Since they began to explore the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum 40 years
ago, archeologists have discovered constructions over hundreds of
square kilometers and more than 600 tombs of those buried alive
with the emperor. However, the overall plan of the cemetery
remained a mystery.
The cemetery, facing east, is a rectangle with falling 85 meters
from the south to the north. The ramparts of the inner city and
outer city are altogether 12 kilometers long, similar to that of
Xi'an during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
The underground palace, the central city, lies under the grave
mound in the south of the inner city. It symbolizes Qin Shi Huang's
real palace when he was alive, occupying two thirds of the southern
part of the inner city.
The grave mound is the Qin Shi Huang Tomb tourists can see.
The inner city has the most buildings and buried relics such as the
coffin chamber, flags and weapons for guards of honor and stores.
Subordinate buildings and tombs for buried concubines of the
monarch were also in the inner city.
In
the area between the inner and outer cities, archeologists have
found a chamber for stables, 31 chambers for birds and rare
animals, 48 tombs for imperial concubines who were buried alive
with the emperor and three sites of homes of officials in charge of
gardens and temples.
Some secondary establishments such as a large pit for stone loricae
and terracotta figures were also found in this zone.
Outside the outer city, along with the well-known terracotta horses
and warriors, archeologists found 98 chambers for small stables and
many tombs for those buried with Emperor Qin Shi Huang.
The gates of the inner and outer cities in both the west and the
east were built in the form of courtyards. The city wall in the
mausoleum has cloisters on both sides with turrets at the four
corners.
Emperor Qin Shi Huang was the first in China to construct a
mausoleum city and to build coffin chambers and subordinate palaces
in the mausoleum. The first emperor also started the ritual of
building chambers for those buried alive with the owner of the tomb
on a large scale. Another unusual discovery is that the mausoleum
does not have a tomb of the empress.
(Xinhua News
Agency August 26, 2002)