Yangling Mausoleum

Han emperor's tomb with rooms of foot-tall painted attendants

The tomb complex of the Han emperor Jing (ruled 157–141 BCE) and his empress, 20 km north of Xi'an. The site is built around two tomb mounds and dozens of subsidiary pits filled with painted clay figures of attendants, animals, and chariots — a softer, more domestic counterpart to the military display of the Terracotta Warriors.

The on-site museum is genuinely modern: a glass-floored hall lets you walk above several of the still-being-excavated pits and look down at the rows of figures still partly buried in their original soil. The whole place is much quieter than the Qin warrior site and more rewarding to those with serious interest in the archaeology. Half a day from Xi'an by taxi or local bus.

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A story
When the satellite pits at Yangling were excavated in the 1990s, archaeologists found rank after rank of small painted-clay figures — soldiers, eunuchs, court ladies, animals — about a third life-size. They had been clothed in silk garments and equipped with miniature wooden weapons; the silk and wood are gone, leaving an army of small naked clay people standing in formation. They are sometimes called the "miniature terracotta army," and many people find them more moving than the more famous Qin army down the road.

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