Articles tagged with: China
Chinese Pyramid: Excavation Now
Many tourists in China have seen the terracota warriors and been told that the nearby tree-covered hill is the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang. Tourists are unaware, and Chinese authorities have refused to admit that the “tomb” is actually one of the largest pyramids in the world. Legend has it that:
“plans for the tomb included flowing rivers of mercury, cross-bow booby traps to thwart would-be plunderers, and replicas of the Emperor’s earthly palaces.”
It reads like a work of extreme fantasy. Sima Qian reports that 700,000 workers were employed to burrow through three rivers, and fill the space with bronze. Then artisans apparently carved a map of the entire Qin kingdom on the floor, laced the ceiling with jewels to represent to sky, and created rivers and oceans with quicksilver – that is, liquid mercury (which was widely believed to have life-preserving powers in Qin times). A special machine was even …
2012 Movie: Geryl, Suicide & the Chinese
Most major newspapers had an article on the new 2012 movie when it opened recently. The Spectator ends their review with something I found amusing & strangely prophetic:
When the remnant of humanity — and a Noah’s ark sampling of animals — has to be herded into movie’s own, apocalypse-proof arks, it’s Chinese engineering, not American, that proves equal to the task. “Leave it to the Chinese,” says somebody. “I didn’t think we could do it in the time available.” That sounds to me like a self-fulfilling prophecy. For a start, all our best technical talent has given up working on military hardware and is now concentrating on computer-generated imagery.
Suicide
More serious now, the idea of 2012-related suicide. Tens of millions of people will enjoy the movie for what it is – popcorn entertainment. A few will unfortunately consider it to be an accurate adepiction of an event that will certainly occur, …
Chinese “Tomb” of Emperor Qin Shihuang – A Pyramid
In Science magazine, (Vol 325, pages 22-23), I was amazed to read what is perhaps the most mundane description of a pyramid ever:
Soon after Qin took power, he began preparing for the afterlife. Construction of his mausoleum at Mount Li, 35 kilometers east of Xi’an, took 38 years. The mausoleum, once crowned with pavilions, was never a secret, and even today it is visible as a kilometer-long wooded mound that rises a gentle 75 meters above the surrounding land.
And here is the mausoleum that gently rises 75 meters:
The above image is from the People’s Daily Online. It is a refreshing change from the hill we usually see:
That the Chinese pyramids are in fact pyramids has been very under-investigated. Pyramids in Egypt and Americas have been argued to be a coincidence. How many more do we need before orthodox archaeologists consider that a common culture created them all?
Samoa, Indonesia, Central America, …
I’m Stumped by this Chinese Geoglyph
Originally posted by myself at 2012Forum.com, and nobody could tell me what it really is, so I’m asking the audience of this blog for ideas…
AstralWalker’s talk in Melbourne last month had some slides about GeoGlyphs. It was interesting hearing all the gasps in the audience when he showed the Chinese pyramids…
But this, I have not seen before:http://www.gearthhacks.com/downloads/map.php?file=20423
It is in China, near the Mongolian borderIt is big – looks like hills etc don’t get in the way
The difficulty in determining what it is comes from the huge range of existing geoglyphs, that range from modern art like Colonel Sanders and the Firefox logo, to the ancient Nazca Lines. Without inspecting them at ground level, it is very hard to determine age and technique.
The best suggestion at the forum was that this is something like a quarry, and a large grader was used by someone who was on more then just a …
Pyramid Uncovered in China
Well, uncovered by ground-pentrating radar. Can’t wait for them to actually go inside:
Construction of this mausoleum began in 246 BC and is believed to have taken 700,000 workers and craftsmen 38 years to complete. Qin Shi Huangdi was interred inside the tomb complex upon his death in 210 BC. According to the Grand Historian Sima Qian (145 BC-90 BC), the First Emperor was buried alongside great amounts of treasure and objects of craftsmanship, as well as a scale replica of the universe complete with gemmed ceilings representing the cosmos, and flowing mercury representing the great earthly bodies of water. Pearls were also placed on the ceilings in the tomb to represent the stars, planets, etc. Recent scientific work at the site has shown high levels of mercury in the soil of Mount Lishan, tentatively indicating an accurate description of the site’s contents by historian Sima Qian.
More at China.org
