Western Xia Mausoleum 5 (Xianling)

38.4517°N, 105.9833°E.

The Xianling Mausoleum (Mausoleum 5) of the Western Xia, in the Helan Mountains imperial cemetery, Ningxia, China — the tomb of Emperor Huizong (Li Bingchang, r. 1067–1086), third ruler of the Western Xia dynasty and grandson of the dynasty's founder. Original base approximately 95 metres per side; original height around 22 metres. The octagonal rammed-earth mound follows the standard Western Xia funerary template developed at Tailing. Li Bingchang reigned for nineteen years, much of it under the regency of his mother Empress Liang — a recurring pattern in the Western Xia where empress-dowagers held effective power over child emperors — and died at twenty-six leaving the throne to his three-year-old son Li Qianshun. The reign saw repeated wars against the Song dynasty over the loess plateau border zones and the development of the Tangut Buddhist canon, including translations of Chinese and Tibetan Buddhist texts into the Tangut script.

A pyramid for a third-generation emperor whose mother ruled in his name for a decade, in a dynasty whose three-year-old heir would survive him by 53 years on the same throne.