- BEIJING (Agence France Presse) - Chinese archaeologists have found the
exact location of a Ming emperor's tomb which has been hidden for 600
years in a bid to ward off grave robbers, the state-run Xinhua news agency
reported Tuesday.
-
- The tomb of Zhu Yuanzheng, founder of
the Ming dynasty, his wife and 46 concubines was discovered through a series
of precision magnetic tests carried out over the 20,000 square meter site
of his mausoleum.
-
- "It is a large and complicated structure,"
an unidentified archaeologist was quoted as saying.
-
- "The passage leading to the tomb
chamber is 120 meters (400 feet) long, the longest ever found in China,
and no signs of grave robbers have been detected."
-
- Zhu led a successful rebellion against
the Mongol Yuan dynasty and set himself up as the first emperor of the
Ming dynasty, with the central city of Nanjing as his capital, in 1368.
-
- Construction of his mausoleum, on the
southern slopes of the Purple Mountain in Nanjing, started in 1381 and
was finished in 1383.
-
- When the emperor died in 1398, coffins
were carried out of all 13 of the city's gates in a bid to disguise which
one held his body.
-
- He was buried under a huge earth mound
at the north of the mausoleum complex and the entrance was hidden to ward
off tomb robbers.
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