One and half kilometers west of his Terracotta Army lies the mausoleum (秦始皇陵, Qínshǐ Huánglíng) of the man who ordered their creation. Originally covering over 45 sq km, this would have been one of the grandest necropolises in the world. Today, a pleasantly landscaped park covers the first emperor's 76m-tall burial mound on the slopes of Mt Lishan. The mausoleum is an hour away from Xi'an by public transport.
A city's worth of effigies and items needed for the afterlife were buried around the site. Some 600 different kinds of accessory pits have been discovered so far, and a couple can be visited within the mausoleum grounds. In Pit K9901 you can view some of the 20 restored acrobatic performers found there, while Pit K0006 holds the remains of a dozen statues of court officials.
The most important find is displayed in the vast underground Bronze Chariots Museum. In 1980, just 20m west of the imperial tomb, a pair of half life-size bronze chariots, together with their drivers and teams of horses, were unearthed. It's believed they were intended as vehicles for inspection tours of the emperor's tomb in the afterlife. It took eight years for the 3000 pieces of these beautiful decorative sculptures to be reassembled. The museum does a splendid job of displaying and interpreting these treasures, which are exact replicas from real life down to the finest detail.
The Mausoleum, covered by the same ticket as for the Army of Terracotta Warriors, is a sprawling site – it's worth paying ¥15 for the electric cart to be transported to the pits and the museum from the entrance.
