Western Xia Mausoleum 1 (Yuling)

38.4050°N, 105.9783°E.

The Yuling Mausoleum (Mausoleum 1) of the Western Xia at the foot of the Helan Mountains in Yinchuan, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China — the tomb of Emperor Taizu (Li Yuanhao, r. 1038–1048), founder of the Western Xia dynasty (1038–1227). Original base approximately 100 metres per side; original height around 23 metres. The Western Xia mausolea are unique in Chinese funerary architecture: the tomb mounds are octagonal rather than square or round, built of rammed earth on stone foundations, and the mound itself sits within an enclosure of square outer walls and a roofed funerary palace at the rear. The site contains nine imperial mausolea and approximately 250 satellite tombs spread across 50 square kilometres — the third-largest imperial cemetery in China after the Han and Tang complexes. The Western Xia were Tangut speakers — a Tibeto-Burman language now extinct — who developed their own writing system; the dynasty was annihilated by the Mongols in 1227 and its capital, library, and historical records destroyed.

Octagonal pyramids for an empire that wrote its own script and whose entire civilisation was erased by Genghis Khan's grandsons.