Han Yangling 汉阳陵

About Han Yangling

Its small terracotta people and animals offer an intimate contrast with Qin Shi Huang’s life-size army. The underground display lets visitors view excavated pits through protective glazing, while the wider site includes gate and ritual-building remains. Focus on how these objects and structures represented a complete imperial household; the visitor display does not enter the emperor’s main burial chamber.

Construction of the mausoleum and its adjoining town of Yangling (阳陵邑) began in the fifth year of Emperor Jing (汉景帝刘启) (153 BCE), when people were recruited to resettle at the town. Emperor Jing died in 141 BCE and was buried ten days later; Empress Wang (王皇后) died fifteen years afterward, in 126 BCE, and was buried beside him in a shared mausoleum area with separate chambers, the whole project having taken twenty-eight years to complete.

The emperor's mound rises about 31 metres and is surrounded by eighty-one radiating accompanying pits. A large gate on the southern side formed the principal entrance to the emperor's mausoleum precinct. The empress's mound, 450 metres to the east, rises approximately 25.5 metres and has twenty-eight accompanying pits. Two ritual-building sites stand southwest and southeast of the emperor's mound. Further groups of twenty-four pits each lie northwest and southeast of it. Most finds are military-related, leading archaeologists to interpret these groups as representations of the Han Southern and Northern Armies (南军、北军).

The site was listed as a Shaanxi provincial cultural relics protection unit in 1956 and, in 2001, as a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level (全国重点文物保护单位) among the Western Han imperial tombs. Objects excavated from the mausoleum were found in 2016 to contain tea residue dated to the second century BCE.

What to look for

• The small terracotta people and animals in the protected burial-pit displays.
• The underground museum’s glazed view into excavated areas.
• The southern gate remains and the imperial mound landscape.

Location & getting there

Getting to Han Yangling

Travel to the Han Yangling museum complex on the airport-road corridor in the Zhengyang area, north of the Wei River.

• Arrange a return road connection; the archaeological galleries and outdoor remains occupy separate parts of the grounds.