20 9 月 How High is the Mound of Qin Shi Huangdi Tomb?
Located at the northern foot of Mount Li, 35 kilometers east of Xi’an, the Qin Shihuangdi tomb is a tall, majestic, and imposing mound viewed from a distance. So, how tall is this majestic earthen mound? From the north side of the bottom of the mound, the mound is 55 meters high, almost 20 stories high, which is the tallest mound of ancient Chinese emperors’ tombs.
So, do today’s measurements match the historical records? Obviously, there is a big discrepancy. According to The Book of Han, “it was more than fifty feet high and had a circumference of more than five miles”. The 50 feet in the Qin Dynasty is equivalent to 115 meters today, which is more than double the height of 55 meters. The archaeologists combined the data on the change of height of the Western Han Dynasty tomb before and after 2000 years, and other documentary records conducted field measurements at different locations, and finally came to two conclusions: some experts believe that 115 meters were the design height at that time, and eventually, it was not completed according to the design height due to the peasant uprising; some experts believe that it was different data from different measurement locations.
The Mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin Shihuangdi is located on the alluvial fan at the northern foot of Mount Li, and the terrain is high in the south and low in the north. The height of the earthen mound was 107 meters when measured in the village of Wuxi, north of the outer city, and after more than 2,000 years of erosion, it makes sense that it would be lowered by 8 meters. Therefore, this measurement point may be the measurement point of that year.
What secrets lie beneath this tall and majestic mausoleum mound? In November 2002, the China Geological Survey and the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology jointly conducted a physical exploration of the Qin Shihuangdi Mausoleum area. This exploration used 22 physical means in 8 categories, including gravity, magnetic, electrical, radioactive, elastic wave, and nuclear magnetic resonance methods. At the same time, archaeologists explored with Luoyang shovel to verify the detection results of high-tech means.
It was finally confirmed that there was a group of tightly rammed earth structures built by manual tamping under the mound, with an overall 9-story platform structure, 30 meters above the ground, as high as a 10-story building, with tiles and wooden structures on the outside of each platform. This nine-story platform structure is unprecedented in the history of archaeology and a major innovation in the history of the mausoleum system. According to the research of archaeological experts, its function was for the soul of the First Qin Emperor to come out of the underground palace and look down on the empire.