Qianling Mausoleum

The Qianling Mausoleum was built in 684AD during the Tang dynasty and houses various members of the royal Li family which included the Emporer Gaozong and Empress Wu Zetian. There are 17 tombs in total. The empress was and still is the only women to ever rule China. She started off as one of the emperors concubines. She was not his favorite however and she had to fight for his affection from another concubine and the then Empress Wang. In the end, she won his affection and had the other two killed, whereas she became Empress. She slowly gained more and more influence over governing an empire and by the time Emperor Gaozong died, she was making most of the decisions. She was ruthless when it came to power! She had her own son and daughter killed and two another sons deposed and exiled so she could remain in power. She put her youngest son on the throne making him Emperor but she ruled the kingdom through him. She even started her own dynasty; the Zhou Dynasty from 690 to 705 which interrupted the Tang Dynasty. She died in 705 and the Tang Dynasty started again.

The mausoleum rests on top of Mount Liang. Believe it or not, in the picture above, the two hills are called Nipple Hills! The thought process here is that the mountain where her tomb is is her head and this section forms her breasts. They also act as an entrance into Spirt Way(the name of the brick road above) and her tomb.

Flanking Spirt Way on both sides are guardian statues. The statues are slowly deteriorating due to time and nature.

Several countries, the US included, helped to try and clean the statues and preserve them. It's currently in a trial process. If it works, China may allow the remaining statues to be cleaned. The Chinese are a very proud people and don't like to ask for help from other countries. They see this as "losing face." The Empress Zetian's tomb has never been opened because China lacks the technology to preserve what is inside once they open it.

Stone guard tower.

The 61 statues of foreign diplomats. They where sculpted in the 680's and represent the actual 61 diplomats that attended Emperor Gaozong's funeral. Why they are headless and where the heads went remains a mystery.

Another spot we went to was the Tomb of Princess Yongtai. She was the granddaughter of the Empress Zetian and Emperor Gaozong. She died when she was 17, her death still somewhat of a mystery. She may have died from nature causes but it's more likely that the Empress had her killed along with her husband. I couldn't take any photo's of the tomb but I found the two above online. The tomb is like something out of Indiana Jones! You walk down are very steep rocky path with carvings on both sides. At the bottom is a long hallway that had several doors you had to go through before coming upon her tomb. Grave robbers even broke in at a side wall and stole many relics from the tomb. It was a really cool place and I wish I could have gotten photo's of it.