The Western Xia Tombs are located on the eastern foothills of the Helan Mountains in Yinchuan, Ningxia, about 30 kilometers from the city center, which can be reached in half an hour by car. The entrance fee is 68 yuan, but there are additional charges for the shuttle buses to different tombs, which is quite unreasonable. Some combo tickets include 3D/4D movies that do not introduce the Western Xia Tombs but rather feature very strange romance or animated films, so be cautious when purchasing tickets.
Typically, visitors start by viewing the museum, but you can also take the shuttle bus to see the tombs first and then visit the museum afterward. It is recommended to choose a time with good lighting for outdoor tomb viewing based on the weather conditions.
The museum has two floors. The first floor mainly introduces the basic history and culture of the Western Xia, and the exhibition and explanation levels feel average; some content is even less than what I learned from books, so a quick browse is sufficient. The essence of the artifacts from the Western Xia Tombs is on the second floor, where you can take a closer look. The main unearthed artifacts are architectural components, with notable pieces including the Kālīṅga bird, which is a mythical bird in Sanskrit known for producing beautiful sounds in the Buddhist paradise. The Kālīṅga birds unearthed from the Western Xia Tombs come in two types: green glazed and gray pottery, shaped like a bird with a human head, with double wings and a tail. There are quite a few Kālīṅga birds in the museum, each with unique features. Personally, I particularly like a green-glazed beast that resembles a lion, with its mouth wide open as if roaring, but unfortunately, its hands are slightly damaged, so it probably cannot be classified as a first-class cultural relic. The most famous artifacts unearthed from the Western Xia Tombs are the glazed chiwen and gilded bronze cattle, but one is in the National Museum and the other in the Ningxia Museum, so to see them all, you need to visit multiple places. The Western Xia Tombs Museum has chiwen in red and gray pottery, which should be similar in shape, with dragon heads and fish tails, and wide-open eyes, which I find not very cute. More adorable are the green-glazed sea lions and goats, which have their heads and tails raised on the base, looking lively. Other notable pieces include stone-carved warrior support columns, with exaggerated human figures and inscriptions in both Western Xia script and Chinese characters, which have high research value. There are also stone-carved dragon railing columns, with three sides carved with the "Double Dragons Playing with Pearls" cloud pattern, which are quite visually appealing. The museum also provides a detailed introduction to the Western Xia Tombs; if you plan to visit the tombs, this part can actually be skipped, as there are corresponding text introductions on-site.
It takes about 1 to 1.5 hours to finish viewing the museum. Afterward, we watched the 3D movie included in the combo ticket. Although it wasn't worth watching, it was a chance to sit and rest for a while. After watching half of it, we left to take the shuttle bus to Tomb No. 3. Tomb No. 3 is believed to be the tomb of Li Yuanhao, the founding emperor of the Western Xia, based on research, located about 2-3 kilometers from the museum. The shuttle bus departs once it is full, accommodating about 20 people. Since we visited on the last day of the holiday, there weren't many people, and after a short wait, we set off, arriving at Tomb No. 3 in about 5 minutes.
Tomb No. 3 faces south and backs north. From a distance to the south, a huge conical mound stands out on a vast plain, with the undulating Helan Mountains in the background. Surrounding the mound are some remnants of low earthen walls, and under the light rain of the day, one can feel a sense of desolation and grandeur of the Western Xia Kingdom. This large mound is called the tomb tower, and experts speculate it should have been a seven-story eave structure, possibly topped with a spire. Due to long-term exposure to wind and rain and human destruction, the external and top structures of the tower have been damaged, leaving only the existing layered mound.
The entire cemetery is rectangular, with the north-south distance of the tomb city being 180 meters and the east-west distance being 160 meters. The wall foundation is 3 meters wide, built in segments with yellow earth. To the south of the tomb city is a rectangular moon city, measuring 120 meters east-west and 52 meters north-south, with a wall foundation about 2 meters wide. Further south, there are stele pavilions and gate platforms, symmetrically arranged on both sides of the central axis.
Originally, there should have been a sacrificial hall to the south of the tomb tower, but now only the yellow earth platform base remains, with a diameter of 20 meters and a height of 0.7 meters. The sacrificial hall is connected to the tomb tower by a 50-meter-long burial passage sealed with earth, with a thief pit at the northernmost end, 20 meters in diameter and about 5 meters deep. In the midst of desolate yellow earth, this thief pit has sprouted a cluster of green plants, perhaps symbolizing the rebirth of the Western Xia land after calamity.
Exploring Tomb No. 3 in detail takes less than an hour. Afterward, you can take the shuttle bus back to the museum from the north or go to Tomb No. 4 or the Twin Tombs. We didn’t have time to visit other tombs, so we didn’t buy shuttle bus tickets and went directly back to the museum.
It takes quite a bit of time to fully explore the Western Xia Tombs; we spent about 3 hours just visiting the museum and Tomb No. 3. As the latest World Cultural Heritage site, there is still room for improvement in the layout and services of the scenic area. I hope they can enhance the arrangement and explanation of cultural relics in the future and reduce some unrelated charging items that seem to be money traps, so as to attract more tourists from around the world.