Soul Tower 明楼

To be honest, the underground palace at Ding Tomb was a bit underwhelming. I guess I wasn’t really impressed by what I saw, since I thought it was rather unimpressive. I would probably have to think about how difficult it was to built the underground palace since everything was all five stories underground. True, it didn’t really look anything like a palace except for the throne but probably because most of the stuff have already deteriorated away including the tomb itself.

Huge Stele at the Soul Tower 明楼

Outside the underground palace, was the path leading back to the entrance, this time I could climb up the main tower that is the most prominent feature of the Ding Tomb, the Soul Tower 定陵. The Soul Tower is a typical Ming dynasty tower which is reminiscent of the gates at the Forbidden City. This kind of design became known the world over as Chinese style. At the center of the tower is a stele which is natural since there is a dead emperor here. The building has been restored although the roof doesn’t seem to have been done so. Which was strange since the management could easily restore this using the entrance fees. With the number of tourist that go in every day, there should be more than enough to do that.

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