Dynastic History | Qianling, Mount Liang — The Blank Stele and the Closed Hill

Gaozong died in 683 and was buried the following year on 梁山, a natural hill in what is now 乾縣, north-west of the Tang capital. His widow 武則天 held power as regent, then in 690 took the imperial title herself and proclaimed a dynasty of her own, the Zhou — the only woman to reign as emperor in Chinese history. She was deposed in 705 and died the same year. In 706 the restored Tang court carried her out to 乾陵 and buried her with Gaozong as his empress. The funeral was itself a ruling: a reign was filed back inside a marriage.

Two stelae stand on the approach. The western one, 述聖紀碑, praises Gaozong at length, its text attributed to Wu Zetian. The eastern one, 無字碑, was set up without a character on it. Later hands cut inscriptions into the blank from the Song dynasty onward, which is how a silence turns into a guest book. Why the Tang left it empty is not recorded anywhere contemporary.

Beyond the stelae stand sixty-one stone figures in court dress, carved for the burial to represent envoys and chiefs of states west of the Pamirs — the empire's diplomatic reach, arranged as attendants. Every one of them has lost its head. When that happened, and to what, is not documented; an earthquake and later breakage are both offered, neither by a source of the time.

The tomb has never been opened. An accidental find in 1958 led to an excavation committee in 1960 that was stood down, and the standing rule against excavating imperial tombs has held since — Shaanxi's cultural heritage administration restated it in 2012. Five of the satellite tombs have been dug. The hill is a ticketed park, and the walk up from the gate is the route the funeral took.

📸 Cover: the Qianling approach looking south between the twin peaks, with the statue rows along the spirit way, by Bairuilong, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons