Maoling Mausoleum

34.4356°N, 108.5697°E.

The Maoling Mausoleum in Xingping, Shaanxi Province, China — the tomb mound of Emperor Wu of Han (Liu Che), the seventh emperor of the Western Han dynasty, who reigned from 141 to 87 BCE. Original base 240 by 240 metres; original height 46.5 metres. The construction took 53 years — the entire reign of Emperor Wu — and at completion was the largest royal tomb in China after Qin Shi Huang's. The mound is built of rammed earth in horizontal lifts and is square in plan with a flat truncated summit. Surrounding satellite tombs include those of Wu's general Huo Qubing (whose tomb is decorated with 16 monumental stone sculptures of animals and grappling figures, the earliest free-standing stone sculpture surviving in China), the consort Lady Li, and the imperial concubine Wei Zifu. The mausoleum was looted by the warlord Chimei rebel forces in 27 CE and again during the chaos at the end of the Later Han, with significant portions of the tomb's recorded contents lost.

A flat-topped pyramid that took half a century to build, for an emperor whose reign reorganised the Chinese state and whose tomb was looted twice within two hundred years.