Qing Dynasty East Tombs

Qing Dynasty East Tombs

The area of the Qing Dynasty East Tombs could be called Death Valley, housing as it does five emperors, 14 empresses and 136 imperial consorts. In the mountains ringing the valley are buried princes, dukes, imperial nurses and more.

Emperor Qianlong started preparations for his tomb when he was 30, and by the time he was 88 he had used up 90 tonnes of his silver building it. His resting place covers half a square kilometer. Some of the beamless stone chambers are decorated with Tibetan and Sanskrit sutras, and the doors bear bas-relief bodhisattvas.

Empress Dowager Cixi also got a head start. Her tomb, Dingdong, was completed some three decades before her death. The phoenix (symbol of the empress) appears above that of the dragon (the emperor's symbol) in the artwork at the front of the tomb, not side by side as on other tombs. Both tombs were plundered in the 1920s.

Located in Zunhua county, 125km east of Beijng, the Eastern Qing Tombs offer a lot more to see than the Thirteen Tombs, although you may be a little jaded after the Forbidden City.