Mount Li
Wooded mountain shielding a sealed imperial tomb said to hold rivers of flowing mercury.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Mount Li in Xi'an starts in March 1974, when a farmer's hoe struck something hollow during a drought dig and out came a clay face, the accidental discovery of the First Emperor Qin Shi Huang's afterlife guard. It follows Qin's mercury-elixir obsession, the roughly seven thousand life-sized terracotta soldiers unearthed nearby, and the ancient historian Sima Qian's claim that the sealed tomb beneath the mountain holds rivers of mercury shaped like real rivers. The burial mound itself has never been opened.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor
Underground necropolis guarded by thousands of clay soldiers, its central tomb still unopened.
Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum
Underground necropolis of China's first emperor, guarded by thousands of life-sized clay soldiers.
Han Yang Ling
Miniature painted terracotta figures, once clothed and armed with wood, viewed through climate-controlled glass over the original dig.
Shaanxi Qianling Museum
Sixty-one headless stone envoys and a deliberately blank imperial stele mark a Tang burial ground.
Maoling
Han-dynasty burial mound shaped like a mountain, guarded by sixteen ancient stone-carved animals.
秦二世陵遗址公园
Modest earthen burial mound of a disgraced emperor, ringed by reliefs and golden ginkgo groves.