Mausoleum of the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty
The Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang is located in the eastern suburbs of Lintong County, 35 kilometers (22 miles) east of Xian: on the Lishan Mountain in the south and overlooking the Wei River towards north. Qin Shi Huangdi (259 BC - 210 BC), the first emperor of China, successfully defeated all rival ducal states and unified China by establishing the first centralized feudal dynasty.
The mausoleum covers a total of 2.18 million square meters, with the tomb itself covering 220,000 square meters. The tomb was designed to be 166 meters high, but years of weathering and damage have reduced this to 76 meters. The bottom of the tomb measures 485 meters by 515 meters.
The mausoleum originally consisted of inner and outer sections. The outer section had a circumference of 6,294 meters. In addition, an underground palace, 450 meters long from south to north and 390 meters wide from east to west and covering more than 180,000 square meters, has been discovered. According to Records of the Historian written over 2,000 years ago by Sima Qian, the construction of the grand project involved 700,000 laborers and took 36 years to be completed.
To date, the tomb of the Emperor Qin has not been excavated. But his buried terracotta army unearthed nearby has already stunned the world and has been called the “eighth wonder of the worldâ€. They are the largest pottery figurine group ever unearthed in China. So far, three pits containing such figurines have been excavated. They cover a total area of 20,000 square meters. Some 8,000 life-sized warriors demonstrate a powerful military array under the rule of the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty, 2,200 years ago.
The mausoleum along with the underground army entered the list of world cultural heritage sites in 1987.
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