The Yangling Mausoleum, the joint burial place of the Han Emperor Jingdi (r. 157–141 BC) and his empress, lies twenty kilometres north of Xi'an on the Xianyang plateau. What makes it exceptional is not the scale — the mound itself is unexcavated and modest in appearance — but the museum built over the burial pits that surround it. The pits contain around fifty thousand miniature terracotta figures, approximately one-third the height of those at the Terracotta Army, arranged in military formations, domestic scenes, and agricultural groupings around the imperial mound. The museum is built directly over the ongoing excavation, with a glass floor through which you look straight down into the pits.
Unlike the Qin Terracotta Army, the figures at Yangling are unpainted, simply jointed (arms were once separately attached and have since decayed), and often charmingly specific — pigs, sheep, chickens, cattle, and a range of human figures from soldiers to eunuchs to court ladies. The contrast with the monumental grandeur of the Terracotta Army is instructive: where the Qin warriors project imperial power, the Han figures project a domestic vision of the afterlife, full of livestock and servants to attend to ordinary needs.
The museum complex also includes the sealed imperial mound, walkable paths through the burial precinct, and a well-designed exhibition covering Han burial customs and the objects recovered from opened pits. The site is best reached by taking Line 1 Metro to Weihe Road station, then a taxi, or by dedicated tourist bus from Xi'an North Station.