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Incorporating All For One: The First Emporer’S Tomb Mound, Jie Shi

History of Art Faculty Research and Scholarship

The towering earthen mound standing at the center of the First Emperor of Qin, Qin Shihuangdi’s (259–210 B.C.E.) Lishan necropolis at present-day Lintong in Xi’an, Shaanxi province was arguably the single greatest burial marker in ancient China. For centuries, this

gigantic unopened monument has sparked curiosity and aroused interest among people regarding its nature. Without physically damaging the target, in 2001–2003 Chinese archaeologists used a new geophysical remote sensor to scan the surface of the mound, digitally probed into its inner structure, and detected a nine-stepped wall that bounds an aboveground burial shaft stretching down deep into the ground. This …