This museum exhibits some of the artifacts found in Dingling.
Silver ingots
Gold ingots
The Empress' Crown
Imperial Seal
Emperor Wanli's Golden crown
view from the back
Emperor's robe
Direction stone tablet
This is 50 m away from the outer wall of the tomb and 10 m deep
Entrances to the imperial tombs are well kept secrets. Many builders were killed just to silence them. Then why do Directional stone tablets exist? According to Ming custom, the emperor and the empress were buried together in the same tomb. Emperors built their tombs during their lifetime. If the empress died during the life of the emperor, she will be buried first in the tomb. Therefore, they needed to reopen the tomb to bury the emperor later. The purpose of these tablets were to direct the officials to the entrance of the tombs (bearing in mind that the tombs were well guarded by the army at all times).
Then the next question will be why did they keep the stone tablets when both the emperor and the empress have been buried? This is because no one is sure if they need to reopen the tomb again. If the son of one of the emperor's concubines became the emperor, then she will be entitled to be buried here eventhough she may not be alive at the time. Her coffin will be moved here from her tomb. This in fact has happened.
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