Yangling Mausoleum

34.4533°N, 108.9667°E.

The Yangling Mausoleum in Xianyang, Shaanxi Province, China — the tomb mound of Emperor Jing of Han (Liu Qi), the sixth emperor of the Western Han dynasty, who reigned from 157 to 141 BCE. Original base 168 metres per side; original height 31.6 metres. The site has been the most extensively excavated Han imperial tomb complex: from 1990 onward, more than 80 satellite burial pits arranged in radial rows around the main mound have been opened, producing over 50,000 miniature painted terracotta figures depicting soldiers, court officials, women in court dress, and domesticated animals. The figures stand approximately 60 centimetres tall — one-third the size of the Qin terracotta soldiers — and were originally clothed in textiles and wooden arms that have decayed in the tomb environment, leaving the naked clay bodies that visitors see today. The Han Yang Ling Museum, opened on site in 2006, displays the satellite pits in situ under glass.

The Han imperial pyramid that produced the second-largest assemblage of buried ceramic figures in China, and the only Chinese imperial cemetery whose satellite pits are open to the public above their original burials.