30m building within Emperor Qin's tomb?
Updated: 2007-07-11 09:26
Research discovered surrounding stair-like walls
Chinese archeologists recently announced that they have discovered a building buried within the 50-meter-high pyramid-like tomb of the first Qin Emperor. A research fellow with Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute, Duan Qingbo, who has been long engaged in archaeological research of the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, said, "The building is 30 meters high, buried within the pyramid-like earth above the tomb's main portion underground. This is actually a feature of Chinese ancient tombs. We discovered this 30 meter building after conducting research on the internal structure."
Duan said that the structure is located above the tomb's main portion underground and below the pyramid-like earth. It has four, giant, surrounding stair-like walls, 30 meters above the ground and 6-8cm thick.
Building completed before emperor died
Duan added, "We have discovered many tiles in upper levels outside the east, west and north walls. The tiles accumulated near the top of the stairs. Several were found in lower levels. However, we seldom found tiles on the top surface of the stair-like wall. There is no sign of burnt clay and coal, either."
"In terms of the shape of the stair-like walls, the building's stairs may not have been constructed out of wood; only the top surface of the stair-like walls are wooden with a tile roof. However, it is also possible that each stair was built with wood and a tile roof…observing from a distance of the tomb, except for the center position, we understand it be a wooden structure with four surrounding stair-like walls consisting of nine steps each," Duan explained.
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