Dingling Underground
Palace
The Dingling Museum is located in
Changping County at the foot of the Yanshan Mountains,
outside Beijing. This is the site of the world-famous
Ming dynast 'Thirteen Tombs' and it counts as the tenth
among those thirteen. The thirteenth emperor of the
Ming dynasty is buried here, together with his two empresses.
Zhu Xianjun was the Shenzong emperor, with the reign
name of Wanli. He ascended the throne at the age of
ten, in " 1572, and was on thethrone for 48 years.
This was the .t, longest reign of any Ming dynasty emperor.
The Dingling tomb construc?tion was
begun in 1584 and was finished in 1590. The cost of
construction was said to be eight million liang of gold;
it stands on 18 hectares of land. The main buildings
are built along an axis that includes a stone bridge,
stelae tower, gates, halls, tower, surrounding wall
and the underground palace hall. The surface buildings
were destroyed several times by fire, so except for
the minglou, banding, wall, and underground palace which
have been relatively well preserved, only traces remain
of the other buildings.
In May of 1956, archaeologists
found the entryway to the underground palace at a depth
of 27 meters. This was called the 'gold steel wall' gate
and it stands 8.8 meters high. In it was a doorway shaped
like the Chinese character for man. This entryway was
tightly sealed with twenty-three layers of large bricks.
Tearing down this human-shaped entryway in the gold steel
wall, they followed along the corridor inside and encountered
two large carved-jade doors. These were three meters high,
and each of the two swinging doors in the frame was 1.8
meters wide and weighed around four tons. On them were
carved nine rows of the symbolic knobs. A bronze beam
of around ten tons in weight was set across the top part
of the door: the axles of the doors were set in this so
that they could swing open. Beyond the doors was an underground
palace hall containing a suite of connected rooms, including
front, middle, rear, left and right chambers. All were
spacious and separated by seven stone gates. The front
and middle halls used 'gold bricks' as a floor covering,
the others were of stone construction.
The rear chamber was the main part
of the palace. Three coffins lay here, with Zhu Xianjun
in the middle and his two empresses on either side. Twenty-six
red?lacquered cases were set around the coffin, holding
some 3,000 items made of gold, silver, gems, ceramics,
jades, and fabric, all to accompany the burial.
All of the Dingling Museum's collections
come from articles unearthed from this underground palace.
They are not only beautiful, they represent a valuable
resource for studying Ming court life and Ming craftsmanship.
Among items excavated from Dingling
are the emperor's crown and a phoenix crown that are
particularly notable. The golden crown is woven of very
thin threads of gold and two golden dragons are crouched
and coiled on top. The crown is 24 centimeters high
with a diameter of 20.5 centimeters and a weight of
826 grams. The phoenix crown was used by the empress
when she received visitors at court. It uses lacquered
bamboo and silk as a base and on top are silk gold dragons
and a jadeite phoenix, as well as flowers that are created
out of gems. The crown is encrusted with 150 precious
gems and more than 5,000 pearls.
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