Treasures of the Ding Ling and other Ming bling.

The liù lóng sān fēng (six dragon three phoenix) crown of the Empress Wang Xiaoduan. It has five hundred and forty-nine pearls, seventy-one rubies, and fifty-seven sapphires. Kingfisher feathers were painstakingly cut and glued onto gilt silver, giving the effect of cloisonné, though no enamel could match the electric blue colour of the feathers.

In 1958 Chinese archaeologists excavating deep beneath the massive burial mound of the Ding Ling, the tomb of the 13th Ming emperor, managed to locate and enter the burial chamber. There they found four huge chambers totalling over 800 square meters in area. In the centre of the main chamber stood the coffins of the emperor and his two empresses.

On the floor around each coffin were almost three thousand priceless funeral objects: chests of fine porcelain, gold, silver, pearls, silk, jade, jewellery encrusted with precious stones and even stones chosen for their special shapes. There were bejewelled hat pins, jade pendants and belt fastenings, golden chopsticks, spoons, boxes, washbasins, lacquered toilet articles and a jade ewer, apparently for ceremonial use, with its lid attached to a chain of jade links all carved from a single piece of stone. There were models of furniture, spears, flagstaffs with banners used in imperial processions and a black iron helmet decorated with martial figures in gold and topped with a long red plume. There were bolts of silk and rolls of silk brocade woven in fine patterns, many with golden thread and with the date and place of manufacture, mostly the imperial workshops at Nanjing and Suzhou, embroidered on them, along with the names of the weavers and supervising officials.

The gold winged crown of the Wanli emperor. The mesh cap was made from a single strand of 2mm thick gold thread.

These grave goods represented the most exquisite and refined examples of their time. Most of the headgear, costumes, textiles, jewellery, jade items and ornaments of gold and silver were crafted especially for the burial. These objects had been produced without regard for cost and by engaging the most skilled and artistically creative craftsmen in the empire. They represented the pinnacle of design and production and illustrated the social habits, customs and artistic styles of early 17th century China.

The Ding Ling is the only Ming tomb to have been excavated to date.

The death and resurrection of the Ming Tombs

During the uprising that toppled the Ming dynasty in 1644, marauding rebels ransacked many of the tombs and torched them in their advance on Beijing. Some of the tombs sustained further damage during the Taiping Rebellion (1850-64) but were repaired by the Qing government when peace was restored. The necropolis survived the ravages of the Japanese invasion and occupation of China (1931-45) and the civil war between the nationalists and the communists that followed.

The Manchus, who overthrew the Ming and established the Qing dynasty, respected the ancestral tombs of China’s former rulers as part of their efforts to bring harmony to relations between their Han and Manchu subjects. The first Qing emperor rebuilt the tomb of the last Ming emperor’s favourite concubine to accommodate the remains of the emperor himself. In 1785 the Qianlong emperor, one of the greatest rulers of the Qing dynasty, restored the Zhao Ling, the tomb the twelfth Ming emperor, after it had been struck by lightning and fallen into disrepair.

Aerial view of the restored Zhao Ling, tomb of the twelfth Ming Emperor, taken in 2020.

Since the time of the Zhou dynasty (1046-221 BCE) it was the custom for a new dynasty to grant a title, along with land or a stipend, to a member of the dynasty which had been overthrown so that he could offer ritual, commemorative sacrifices to his imperial ancestors. In 1725 the Qing emperor selected Zhu Zhilian to perform the funerary rites at the Ming Tombs and granted him the hereditary title of marquis, an honorific which those who followed in his position also carried down through twelve generations of Ming descendants until the fall of the Qing dynasty and the end of imperial rule in China in 1912. In 1929 Chinese government relieved the last holder of his title, terminated his duties of carrying out memorial ceremonies at the Ming Tombs and abolished his position. And with that the Ming Tombs ceased to have a functional existence.

The necropolis sank once again into decay until in 2000 the tombs were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List and the Chinese government embarked upon a ambitious restoration project that has seen four of the tombs fully restored.

Photo of the Xian Ling, the tomb of the fourth Ming emperor, taken by the author in 1973.

The Qing tombs.

The buildings, sculptures and interior decoration of the Ming Tombs in Beijing are the highlights of 5,000 years of Chinese burial practice. They contain the best elements of the culture of Central and North China. However, the following dynasty, the Qing (1644-1912), also left magnificent imperial mausoleums. They are significant examples of the architecture and culture of the Manchus, a nomadic tribe from Northeast China which overthrew the Ming dynasty.

There are two main groups, the Eastern Qing Tombs and the Western Qing Tombs. The Eastern Qing Tombs are located at Zunhua, 125 kilometres northeast of Beijing. They are the largest, most complete and best preserved extant mausoleum complex in China. The Western Qing Tombs are located some 140 kilometers southwest of Beijing in Yi County, Hebei Province.

There are four royal mausoleums which are the last resting places of four emperors along with their empresses, imperial concubines, princes and princesses. Because both groups of tombs are located far from Bejiing they are not often visited by foreigners, which is in itself a good reason to go.

Eastern Qing tombs

Western Qing tombs