Han Yang Ling Mausoleum

Han Yang Ling is the mausoleum of Emperor Jing of Han (r. 157-141 BCE), the fourth emperor of the Western Han dynasty, and his empress, Wang Zhi, located on the Xianyang plateau northwest of Xi'an. Discovered during road construction in 1990 and excavated through the 1990s, the tomb complex includes the emperor's and empress's burial mounds along with more than 80 satellite burial pits arranged around them, mirroring the layout of the Han imperial court. Unlike the life-size Terracotta Army built for the earlier Qin emperor, the figures buried at Han Yang Ling are small-scale, roughly one-third human height, made of terracotta with movable wooden arms (now decayed, leaving armless torsos) and dressed originally in silk clothing that has not survived. The pits contain thousands of these figurines representing infantry, cavalry, eunuchs, and court attendants, alongside models of domestic and farm animals, granaries, and everyday vessels, reflecting the Han-era shift toward a more agrarian, less martial funerary ideology than the Qin. The museum is built directly over several excavation pits, with visitors walking on a glass floor that looks straight down into the original burial trenches, an unusual presentation method that keeps the artifacts in situ rather than removed to display cases. A separate indoor exhibition hall shows figurines, pottery, and jade burial objects at closer range with explanatory panels on Han burial custom and Emperor Jing's reign, remembered for the low-taxation, consolidation-focused governance credited with strengthening the Han state before Emperor Wu's later expansion. The underground pit hall is climate-controlled to protect the exposed archaeological surfaces from humidity and light damage.