Yiling Mausoleum

34.4033°N, 108.7333°E.

The Yiling Mausoleum in Xianyang, Shaanxi Province, China — the tomb mound of Emperor Ai of Han (Liu Xin), the thirteenth emperor of the Western Han dynasty, who reigned from 7 BCE to 1 BCE. Original base 175 metres per side; original height 30 metres. Emperor Ai's brief reign is best remembered for his romantic relationship with the courtier Dong Xian, which Sima Qian and Ban Gu both record at length and which produced the Chinese literary expression duan xiu — the cut sleeve — referring to the emperor's reluctance to wake Dong Xian by removing his arm from beneath the sleeping man. Ai died at twenty-five without an heir; Dong Xian was forced to commit suicide within hours of the emperor's death by the regent Wang Mang, who used the succession vacuum to elevate the boy-emperor Ping and then to take the throne himself. The mound is built of rammed earth in horizontal lifts.

A pyramid for the emperor whose love story produced an enduring Chinese literary phrase, and whose death triggered the final political crisis of the Western Han.