Hi guys. Today I will discuss the mysterious Chinese pyramids including the magnificent
white pyramid located in western China. This extraordinary structure is said to be the
largest pyramid in the world, bigger than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. In the
white pyramid’s surrounding valley, there are a dozen other pyramids, some rising to
an elevation almost as great. Are these claims myth or reality?
The West initially learned about these incredible structures when Fred Meyer Schroder, an American
trader, first reported this enigma in 1912. At that time, he was travelling with a guide
through the Shaanxi Province, where he recorded seeing a giant flat-topped pyramid approximately
1,000 feet tall, surrounded by a number of smaller pyramids.
Fast-forward three decades later, US Air force pilot James Gaussman spotted a “shimmering
white” structure while flying over west China. It was said to be twice the size of
the Great Pyramid of Giza. Two years later in 1947, another U.S. aviator
Maurice Sheahan caught sight of a giant pyramid while flying over Shaanxi Province, not far
from Xi’an - and rapidly snapped pictures. This time, several U.S. newspapers, including
the New York Times published articles of the sighting in March 1947.
Back then Chinese archaeologists denied the existence of such structures, because to most
Chinese, these are not pyramids but ancient emperors’ tombs. That’s right, the so-called
Chinese pyramids, are actually Han emperors’ burial mounds with over 2,000 years of history.
The Han dynasty ruled for four centuries from 206 BC to 220 AD. A mound on top of a buried
tomb is a Chinese tradition that has been passed along for at least 2,700 years. Currently
in rural areas, Chinese bury their deceased family member in the ground with a mound on
top. The Han emperors’ burial mounds are surely the grandest – they are pyramidal
shaped with flat tops. Originally there were memorial structures on top but they are long
gone with only traces of the foundations left.
The Chinese pyramids are located in the Xianyang, central China, which is considered one of
the cradles of Chinese civilization. The valley contains two great ancient imperial capitals
Xi’an and Xianyang. It has a special geographical significance: because the Himalaya mountain
range occupies the entire southwest of China, with the Taklamakan desert on the west, and
Loess Plateau on the north. This habitable valley was the land pathway connecting Persia,
Mesopotamia or current day Middle East, and the ancient Greek and Roman Empires to Oriental
China. In fact, Xi’an is the eastern terminus of the original Silk Road from 2,200 years
ago. Xi’an was called Chang'an in ancient times and it was a capital that well-matched
the city of Rome during the same time frame.
This legendary valley witnessed the rise and fall of the most important dynasties in Chinese
history. The Wei River, along with other rivers, runs through the Wei valley and provides irrigation
for the crops. For millennia, people have lived and prospered here. Moreover, this valley
is like the Chinese version of the Valley of Kings because more than 30 emperors were
buried here, along with thousands of ancient royal tombs.
In the Han dynasty, emperors’ mausoleums were placed along the Wei River. These unusual
mausoleums not only have the emperors and other royals’ tombs, but also were accompanied
with large areas of residential and commercial neighborhoods. Once a mausoleum was planned
and established, the emperor would move thousands of families of military, aristocracy, government
officials and wealthy merchants to the newly developed real estate “community”. This
practice ensured the safety and security of the emperors’ tombs with abundance of guards,
maintenance labor and surveillance. Furthermore, because the mausoleums are located west of
the Han capital of Xi’an, they formed satellite enforced towns to block invaders approaching
from that direction. Back then living in these districts was a sign of social and political
status.
2200 years ago, Han emperors built the mausoleums with giant pyramidal mounds, which we now
consider the Chinese pyramids. So are claims about them true?
Question: Is there a 1,000’ tall pyramid in China? Bigger than any pyramid in Egypt?
Answer: Myth.
If there indeed existed a structure of 1,000’, we can be sure that there would have been
records of it, either in the official chronicles that ancient historians took great pride and
effort to document, or in poems and folklores among the local people. But there are no records
documenting a mammoth structure even close to the size of 1,000’. What was documented,
in both the official chronicles and popular poems, are the Han emperors’ mausoleums.
The imperial documentations specifically recorded the sizes, heights and locations of different
Han emperors’ resting places and burial mounds.
On the other hand, the description from Fred Meyer Schroder could be unintentionally exaggerated.
When he visited the valley in 1912, it was a flat open plain with farmland, and buildings
just one or two-stories high. In such an environment, the man-made giant mound would look even more
impressive, and create a misperception of being much taller and bigger than its actual
size. If we want to estimate the height of a structure, we usually use surrounding elements
as comparison to gather information. For example, this sculpture is twice the height of a man
therefore it would be around 11.5’ or 3.5m. We can also measure a far away structure with
a pencil as we do so for a drawing. However, there was no comparable structure anywhere
near the burial mound, so it is almost impossible to get a good estimate on the actual height
or size of this pyramid.
The same applies to the pilots’ claims. I assume it must be even more difficult to
estimate the mounds’ heights while flying in the air at that time.
Therefore I believe the 1,000’ tall pyramid was a misperception.
Then how big are the Han emperors’ mounds really? There has been talk of the Chinese
pyramids being so immense that they put both the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Sun Pyramid
at Teotihuacan to shame. This is a myth as well.
Let’s put the largest Chinese pyramid side by side with these two. The Great pyramid
of Giza is 146.7m or 481’ high, and the Sun Pyramid at Teotihuacan is 65.5m. The largest
Chinese emperor’s burial mound is 46.5m/ 153’ tall. Much shorter than the other two!
Even though the heights and shapes differentiate the three, the measurements of the three pyramid
bases are very close. The base of the largest Chinese pyramid, Maoling mound, is a bit larger
than the base of the largest Giza pyramid, while the Mayan Sun Pyramid base is slightly
smaller.
According to current measurements, the Giza pyramids’ bases are exact squares. The Chinese
burial mounds were designed to have square bases though the execution was not as perfect.
I assume the same thing applies to the Sun Pyramid. The Giza pyramid is much older though
its construction is way more advanced than the other two. This is an argument supporting
the theory that the Giza pyramids were built by a prehistory advanced civilization. It
is curious to see these three pyramids from different continents share similar base sizes
besides sharing pyramidal shapes. A coincidence or is there a deeper meaning here?
Question: Is there really a great White Pyramid? Answer: Yes and no.
There is no white pyramid if we are thinking about a pure white one that almost reflects
light. This claim came from a US pilot who flew over west China in 1945, which means
the pyramid he saw appeared to be white from the air.
There are many shades of white. To paint a room white, you have many choices to choose
from. Some white paints initially look tan or beige but once painted, they will appear
to be soft white to us.
With that in mind, let's look at the Han burial mounds which were made with layers upon layers
of rammed earth.
Over time these mounds were significantly damaged by erosion. Local people also removed
earth from the mounds to make bricks. Nowadays these mounds look dark green because of the
vegetation planted on them to control erosion. But before this recent forestation activity,
these mounds were exposed compacted rammed earth, which would be in this tan or beige
color – like this photo of the old Great Wall of China which was also made of rammed
earth.
Here is footage showing one of the Chinese pyramids, which hasn’t been covered with
conifer trees. Compared to the surrounding dark colored wooded area, this pyramid, even
with grass covering, still looks much lighter. And the pathways that go to the top look white.
We can gather that the mounds would look white from the air especially if they were not covered
with grass at that time.
I think this could be the answer to the famous White Pyramid.
Question: Were the Chinese pyramids placed specifically to match the Orion constellation,
like the Giza pyramids? Answer: No.
According to the Orion correlation theory, there is a connection between the three largest
pyramids of Giza and Orion's Belt. This correlation was intended by the original builders of the
Giza pyramids. The stars of Orion were associated with Osiris, the god of rebirth and afterlife
by the ancient Egyptians.
There are over 10 big Han burial mounds in the Wei Valley. They were placed almost on
the same line and seem to correlate to the Wei River. Inside each mausoleum, there are
usually multiple burial mounds: the largest belong to the emperors, then the empresses,
secondary wives, generals and other relatives. Some empresses’ burial mounds are the same
size as their husbands which are shown here.
The two adjacent pyramids remind me of the Khufu and Khafre Pyramids on the Giza Plateau
because the sizes and position of the two look very similar. This may be the reason
that leads to the assumption that the Chinese pyramids match the Orion’s belt star constellation,
just like the Giza pyramids.
In order to clear up this myth, I put the two pyramid complexes side-by-side to better
compare them. We can see that the layout of Chinese pyramids does not match the Giza pyramid
complex; however, the locations of the Giza pyramids do match the Orion’s belt. Here
are aerial photos of some other Han burial mounds. I highlighted the mounds to be more
legible. None of them matches the Orion’s belt. As I stated earlier, each of the Han
emperors’ mausoleums has multiple burial mounds which were constructed in different
times after royal members’ passing. There were no definite answers on who could make
it into the emperor’s mausoleum because it was the emperor’s personal decision.
Also, there were neither set numbers on how many people would be buried there, nor set
rules on where one would be buried. The burial custom is more like arbitrary art rather than
precise science. I highly doubt that the ancient Han emperors followed any star constellation
as a burial guidance since there were too many fluctuating and unpredictable elements,
so using a star constellation seems impractical.
Question: Since the burial mounds somewhat line up, does that mean the ancient Chinese
used ley line? Answer: Unlikely.
Some scholars believe the burial mounds might be part of a giant system of sacred Fengshui
lines, similar to the ley line theory. Ley line refers to straight alignments drawn between
various historic structures and prominent landmarks.
However, there is no historical record which confirms that the emperors tombs were positioned
based on Fengshui. The Han burial mounds are not really on the same line. There are folklores
about one emperor seeing a special sacred animal during hunting and decided to use that
piece of land as his resting place. If this story has some truth to it, then it means
the emperors were choosing their mausoleums based on their personal preferences instead
of following a specific Fengshui line or ley line.
It’s not uncommon for Chinese emperors of the same dynasty to be buried in a row like
this. Here is a map of the tomb locations of the 18 Tang emperors, and here is a map
of the 13 Ming emperors’ tombs. The tombs of the emperors in the same dynasty are roughly
aligned and grouped together. All these tombs are backed by mountains and facing rivers,
and none of them blocks the others’ views to the mountains or the rivers. That’s why
they all somewhat line up.
Are you wondering what is underneath the solid burial mound? There should be the emperor’s
buried coffin as shown here. Han tombs are famous for their extravagance and abundance
of burial offerings. Unfortunately that is why most of them have been looted many times
over thousands of years.
Decades ago, some Chinese ancient tombs were excavated by officials; but because they lacked
archeological understanding and sufficient technology to properly preserve the artifacts,
many priceless items were destroyed right after they got unearthed. The excavators described
that within minutes even seconds, the beautiful colored silk clothes, brightly painted terracotta
warriors and bamboo books either disintegrated, or turned dark and became unrecognizable.
After that, the Chinese officials made the decision to stop further excavation in order
to wait until they possess enough funding and the right tools for this delicate task.
Unless tomb raiders get to the tombs first, then the officials would do a salvage excavation.
Over the years, many mausoleums were encroached by large residential developments and no one
knows how many precious legacies got bulldozed over, which is extremely sad.
So there you go – the myth or reality of the Chinese pyramids. If you have any insights,
please leave me a comment. I would love to hear from you. If you like my video, please
give me a thumbs up and subscribe. I have a wide range of topics that I want to share
with you. This is Curious Being, I am Tina. Thanks for watching and see you next time!