Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum

Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum lies at the foot of Purple Mountain in Xuanwu District, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, and contains the burial of Zhu Yuanzhang, founder of the Ming dynasty, who reigned as the Hongwu Emperor from 1368 to 1398, together with Empress Ma. Construction began in 1381, when Empress Ma was buried here, and the main works were completed by 1431. The tomb was the first great imperial mausoleum of the Ming and established the pattern of a long ceremonial approach followed by a sacrificial complex and a burial mound, a template repeated at the Ming Tombs near Beijing.

The site is entered along the Sacred Way, a processional avenue lined with stone sculptures. Twelve pairs of stone animals, including lions, xiezhi, camels, elephants, qilin and horses, sit alongside stone military and civil officials, all carved in the early fifteenth century. Beyond them the route passes the Great Golden Gate, the Square Pavilion housing the 'Divine Merit and Sage Virtue' stele erected by the Yongle Emperor, and the ruins of the Sacrificial Hall, of which the foundations and a smaller rebuilt hall from the Qing period survive. The final feature is the Soul Tower (Baocheng) and a large earth burial mound enclosed by a circular wall. The exact position of the burial chamber was intentionally never publicised and has not been excavated.

The complex is presented as an open-air heritage landscape rather than a museum, with the ceremonial layout read chronologically from approach to mound. Timber structures were destroyed in mid-nineteenth-century fighting during the Taiping period, so the scale is best appreciated through the surviving stone, brick and earthwork. Conservation work since the 1990s has repaired paths, stonework and the surrounding forest, and the UNESCO listing in 2003 brought additional protection. The setting among old cedar and camphor trees makes it a pleasant walk as well as a historical stop. The admission price is around ¥70, and visitors often pair it with the nearby Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum and Linggu Temple in the same Zhongshan Scenic Area.