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 The Western
Xia Tombs is located at the eastern foot of Helan Mountain, close
to Yinchuan city in Ningxia Autonomous Region, and measuring 10
kilometers north to south, 4 kilometers east to west, the Mausoleum
contains the tombs of emperors of the Western Xia.
There are eight tumuli and over 70 annex tombs. The tumulus each has an independent group of buildings. Encircled by a wall with an entrance gate in each direction, it has four corner towers and an array of watchtowers,
pavilions housing stone tablets, external city, sacrificial hall and coffin platform from south to north. It encompasses more than 100 thousand square meters.
The tumulus excavated in 1972 has an underground sloping passage, 49 meters long, leading to a square coffin chamber. There's a supplementary pit dug into earth 25 meters deep, at each side of the chamber. Despite a previous excavation, unearthed were still a variety of burial objects: gold ornaments, gilded or silver jewelry, bamboo carvings, copper armour-plates, pearls, broken porcelains etc. The three annex tombs already dug all have a stairway or sloping path to coffin pit. The usual funerary objects in the earth square pits were copper ox and stone horses.
What left about the ground buildings in the tumuli, which were dug or destroyed before the Ming Dynasty is only ruin. However, a great amount of building materials and broken stone tablets and steles with inscriptions in Western Xia or the Han characters still remains. The tumuli imitated the style of tombs in the Tang Dynasty or the Northern Song Dynasty, and are reputed as "Chinese Pyramid".
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