Inside a Han king's imagined afterlife at Shizishan
Read a rock-cut royal tomb alongside jade, terracotta guards and household objects to understand Han ambition beyond death.
Shizishan Chu King's Tomb
A royal burial cut into a hill, best read alongside the objects recovered from Xuzhou's Han tombs.
Shizishan, or Lion Mountain, preserves the architectural setting of a Western Han royal burial. Its associated terracotta figures and excavated objects show a ruler provisioning a world beyond death. The tomb site and Xuzhou Museum offer complementary evidence: one preserves spatial ambition, the other allows close attention to materials and workmanship. Labels should guide identification of original objects, reproductions and reconstructed settings.
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Photo credits and rights
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The excavated approach to the Shizishan royal tomb beneath a modern protective visitor structure.Yumeto · CC BY-SA 4.0 Photo source ↗ Rights information ↗ Resized and converted to WebP.