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
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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historical documents.
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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.
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A computer
illustration of the interior of the
burial chamber
Click on the
image to enlarge it
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