Tomb of Empress Shangguan

34.4469°N, 108.6608°E.

The Tomb of Empress Shangguan at Pingling, Xianyang, Shaanxi Province, China — the satellite tomb mound of the consort of Emperor Zhao of Han, who survived her husband by 50 years and died in approximately 37 BCE. Original base 130 by 110 metres; original height 25 metres. Empress Shangguan was placed on the throne at the age of six by her grandfather Huo Guang and her father Shangguan Jie as a political marriage to consolidate their joint regency over the boy-emperor Zhao; Huo subsequently massacred most of her father's branch of the family in a power struggle, leaving her widowed at fifteen and politically isolated at the Han court. She lived another 35 years as Grand Empress Dowager under three subsequent emperors. Her tomb mound sits west of her husband's at substantially smaller scale, in the standard satellite position for Han imperial consorts after Empress Lü.

A pyramid for an empress whose husband died at twenty, whose family was massacred by her grandfather's faction, and who outlived everyone involved in placing her on the throne by half a century.