China 2001 - The Ming Tombs

The Ming Tombs

You've heard of the Valley of the Kings, near Karnak in Egypt? You, know: King Tut and all his relatives? Well China has a Valley of the Kings also, except here, they're emperors. There were 16 emperors in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Thirteen of them have their tombs here. The tombs are deep underground in hidden locations and towers nearby are used to commemorate and revere the deceased.

The tomb that we visit, Dingling, was the first one to be excavated, restored, and opened to the public. A couple more are now open. By the way, "ling" is "tomb" in Chinese. The whole site is called "Shisanling", which simply means "Thirteen Tombs."

Emperor Wanli (1563-1620) and his 2 empresses were buried here. Emperor Wanli reigned the longest of all the Ming emperors: 48 years.

The tomb is 90 feet underground and covers an area of 12,000 square feet. It consists of 5 rooms connected by high marble archways and floors paved by a highly polished stone. The central hall has 3 marble thrones and porcelain ceremonial vessels. The rear hall is the largest. It contains 3 platforms holding the coffins of the Emperor, his wives and a number of red lacquer chests whose contents are preserved up in the museum. They believe that the empresses were originally to have been entombed in the side corridors, but they ended up in the same room as the emperor.

As we arrive, we walk through a park past a tower, some platforms and such. I spot this dragon. Doesn't he look almost Mayan?

(no pictures allowed in the tomb. Besides, there isn't enough light.)	We enter a new building and go down, down, down a staircase until we reach the level of the tomb. We enter via a side hall, proceed into the back hall, and then go down the main hall, examining the thrones and (replica) ceremonial objects.
We exit through the door that was discovered and unsealed when the tomb was excavated. (see somebody else's picture on the right)
	Then it's back up, up, up another staircase until we finally emerge into the light of day again
	We climb up to the memorial tower to Emperor Wanli, enclosing his funerary stele (a fancy name for a twenty-foot tall headstone.)
(no pictures allowed in the museum either)	The best part of it was the museum where they display many items that came from those chests stashed down with their majesties: Robes (reconstructed for our edification) jewelry, a dragon crown (his) a phoenix tiara (hers), and some more common items.