Ding Tomb
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Ding Tomb is located at the foot of Dayu Mountain, southwest of Changling in Changping District of Beijing, and built in 1584 – 1590. It’s one of the thirteen Ming Tombs that buried the Wanli Emperor and his two empresses. The Wanli Emperor, Zhuyijun, was the thirteenth emperor of the Ming Dynasty in China. The meaning of his era name refers to "Ten thousand calendars”. His reign of forty-eight years (1572-1620) was the longest in the Ming Dynasty.
Ding Tomb early to start before the death of the Wanli Emperor. The construction lasted for about 6 years, and consumed of silver 8.002 million, which was two years' national revenue at that time. The tomb consists of five main buildingsLing En Gate, Ling En Hall, Westwood, out buildings and underground palaces. The underground palace of Ding Tomb is one of the three largest Ming Tombs that covers an area of about 18,000 square meters, of which the rear palace is the major part of the grave. There are three red painted coffins on the coffin platform. The one in the middle is for the Wanli Emperor. The right one is for Empress Xiaojing, and the left one is for Empress Xiaoduan. Most of the burial articles in the wooden boxes at both ends of the platform, however, are rotten.
Ding Tomb is the first imperial grave to be opened with the permission of the People’s Republic of China. The excavation of Ding Tomb began in 1956 with a group of prominent scholars led Guo Moruo and Wu Han who advocated the excavation of Changling which is the oldest and most large scale of Ming Tombs. Despite gained the approval from premier Zhou Enlai, this project of excavating Changling was voted by archaeologists because of its historical importance and public profiles. Finally, Ding Tomb was selected as a trial site in preparation for the excavation of Changling. The excavation of Ding Tomb completed in 1957, and came accordingly the museum in 1959 with all of the exquisite collections from the underground palace displaying there.
The intact tomb was gradually revealed with the excavation going. Thousands of precious objects of gold and silver ware, textiles,silk, porcelain, wood, and the skeletons of the Wanli Emperor and his two empresses were unearthed from the tomb. Amount the objects excavated from Ding Tomb, the most notable objects are the emperors gold crown and the phoenix crown. The golden crown is woven in thin gold threads with the pattern of two golden dragons coiled on the top. The phoenix crown is encrusted with 5,000 pearls and 100 gems with the silk gold dragons and a jadeite phoenix on the top.
However, the excavation led to terrible results because of lacking of technology and resources to adequately preserve the excavated articles. Most of the artifacts such as silk and some other textiles have severely deteriorated in a storage room that leaked water and wind, and many replicas are instead displayed in the museum. Furthermore, the political unrest (the Great Cultural Revolution) created pressures to quickly complete the excavation.
