The Biggest
Underground Palace in China
15 December 2006
In 221 BC, King Ying Zheng
(259-210 BC) of Qin unified the seven warring
states and established the Middle Kingdom,
China. As the king believed, rightly, that an
unprecedented grand era was born in the
Middle Land (中土), he was convinced
that he should not be in the same rank of the
rulers before him. Previously, the sovereigns
were titled 王, meaning King. Thus
he added a character 白 (white) above 王 to form a new character 皇 (emperor), and appointed
himself 秦始皇帝, First Emperor Qin.
The absolute power corrupted
him, and he became obsessed with himself and
his unchallenged authority. That, ironically,
put him in a psychotic fear that all these
could be lost once he reached the limit of
his mortality, and he might resume a life in
the Other World plagued by poverty and
humiliation as he had experienced when he was
a political hostage during his early years.
So he decided to mirror his palace
underground as his pre-paid property in the
Netherworld to ensure his life as emperor
could continue ever after.
The earliest written record
about the mausoleum of the First Emperor Qin
appears in the Historical Records (《史记》) compiled by Sima Qian (司马迁145-85 BC) of Western Han Dynasty (206 BC – 24 AD):
As soon as the
Emperor had ascended to the throne, he
sent 700,000 men to Mount Li (郦山) to construct his
mausoleum. The site includes three
streams, and his coffin is encased in a
bronze sarcophagus. This underground
world is a true replica of the imperial
palace above ground and crowded by
fabulous treasure imaginable. Booby traps
with automatic-shooting arrows were put
into place to deter would-be tomb
robbers. The floor of the central burial
chamber floats on rivers, lakes and seas
of mercury. The vaulted ceiling is
inlayed with pearls and gems to emulate
the sun, moon and principle stars of the
constellations in the night sky. Whale
oid lamps are brightly lit for an
everlasting effect of illustriousness.
始皇初继位，穿治郦山，及并天下，天下徒送诣七十万人，穿三泉，下铜而致椁，宫观百官奇器珍怪徙臧满之。令匠作机弩矢，有所穿近者，辄射之。以水银为百川江河大海，机相灌输，上具天文，下具地理。以人鱼膏为烛，度不灭者久之。
Mount Li
But for the following
two thousand years, the true composition of
the First Emperor’s tomb remained a myth.
Not even its exact location was known apart
from some vague hints in the historical
documents.
Here is a passage in
the Traditional Han Rites (《汉旧仪》) that quoted
frequently by the historians:
Prime Minister Li
Si reported to First Emperor Qin:
"Sire, I’ve led 720,000 men dug
deep into the Mount Li and we’ve now
reached the point where the chisels can
not cut the ground and fire can not be
lit. When knocking, it produces the
echoing sound as if we’d tapped at the
bottom of the Earth, and had we gone any
further we would fall into the sky of the
lower world." On hearing this, First
Emperor Qin ordered, "Just dig
sideways for another 300 zhangs (approx.
1000 metres)."
丞相斯昧死言：臣所将隶徒七十二万人治骊山者已深已极，凿之不入，烧之不然，叩之空空，如下天状。制曰：凿之不入，烧之不然，其旁行三百丈乃止
This mark of another
1000 metres sideways makes the whole matter
all the more obscure and intriguing. To start
with, it could not even be sure whether the
tomb is inside or outside the scope of the
Mount Li.
Yet the local legends
keep murtering of a hidden passageway under
the Mount. During raining days when the yang
qi from the sun was blocked and yin qi is heavy – as the
legends go – the shouting of the yin
soldiers and neighing of the yin
horses in the passage could be heard. It
sounds unconceivable, but Chinese
archaeologists took this tale into
consideration and conducted searches in the
Mount Li for the alleged passageway. With the
help of the latest remote detection
technologies, it is finally confirmed that
the hidden palace is indeed just below the
mount 35m from the surface. The further
investigations also revealed that the
compound is surrounded by multi-layered
retaining walls up to 30 m deep, and a
drainage system that has a 17-metre wide base
made of materials with highly adhesive
properties and 84-metre wide yellow earth
rampart on the top.
Site Plan of the
undergrand palace
The first
comprehensive archaeological study to the
site was carried out in 1962, which
produced a site plan suggesting that the
underground palace covers an area of
56.25 square kilometres and consists of
78 chambers.
The most exciting
result from the study probably is the
suggestion that the lavish features of the
burial chamber described in the ancient
documents, which had long been dismissed as
fables, are true. The places where high
concentrations of the mercury are detected
perfectly correspond to the actual locations
of the major rivers and seas of China.
A computer
illustration of the interior of
the burial chamber
Click on the image
to enlarge it
