The Tomb of Princess Yong Tai is one of the 17 satellite tombs of the Qianling Mausoluem.

    The name of Princess Yong Tai was Li Xianhui.She was the seventh daughter of Tang Empror Zhong Zong(Li Qian) and the grand daughter of Tang Emperor Gao zong and his wife Empress Wu Ze tian.In 701A.D.,Princess Yong Tai died in Luoyang,Henan Li Xianhui died during childbirth.The historical records,though,say that she was beaten to death,because she talked about the scandalous affairs between Wu Zetian and her catamites Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Zongchang.

   After rising to the throne,Emperor Zhong Zong posthumously conferred the title of Princess Yong Tai upon his daughter, who had died a tragic death. And in 705 A.D.,he ordered the remains of his daughter and his husband to be buried together in the southeast of the Qianling Tomb.

    The path to Princess Yong Tai's tomb is lined with a pair of stone lions, two pairs of stone figures, and a pair of obelisks(ornamental stone columns).It is the largest of the Tang tomb was carried out between 1960 and 1962. It is the largest of the Tang tombs excavated since 1949.The tomb is pyramid-shaped ,87.5 meters long and 3.9 meters wide . The burial chamber is 16.7 meters deep. The tomb consists of a main passage , five doorways , six skylights ,a corridor , eight small niches , an antechamber and a burial chamber.The burial chamber represents the house where she lived before her death.The wall on both sides of tomb passage are covered with murals of the Blue in their belts.In the eight small niches on both sides of the skylights there are a multitude of tri-colored glazed pottery figurines,pottery and porcelain wares,and some other burial objects.In the course of the excavation,a hole once dug by grave robbers once entered the tomb,and passed gold,jade and other treasures out of the hole.In order to have a greater share of the stolen goods,those who had already come out of the tomb ruthlessly knifed the last man while he was still in the tomb. It might have happened during the five Dynasties or early in the Song Dynasty.

    Although once robbed, the tomb of Princess Yong Tai still held more than 1,000 valuable cultural artifacts.These treasures were murals,pottery and wooden figurines, tri-colored glazed pottery figurines,which are beautifully shaped and have peculiar decorative design in many bright colors,demonstrate the high artistic level level of the Tang ceramic industry.Inside the tomb ,the walls are covered with rich and varied murals.The tomb passage,the doorways, the paved path leading to the tomb,the two chambers and their ceilings,are all decorated with murals mainly decict elegantly-dressed ladies in waiting.They carry themselves with grace and wear different expressions from one another.Some seem to be speaking in whisper,some nodding appprovingly and others looking around.They look as if they are on the way to serve Princess Yong Tai.On the ceiling of the burial chamber there are painted firmaments and celestial bodies.In the east,there is the rooster with three legs,symbolizing the sun.In the west there is the Jade Hare representing the moon.In between runs the Milky Way,dotted with stars,each of which has its set its set positon in the celestial body.This mural greatly reflects the highly developed astronimy at that time.Because the muddy rain waters flew time and again through the hole into the tomb over the years,many of the exquisite murals were multilated.However,those that have survived can yet be regarded as masterpieces of painting from the Tang Dynasty.

    In the rear chamber lay the outer stone coffin of Princess Yong Tai and her husband.The middle of the coffin was carved with exquisite pictures on both sides, The inner wooden coffin has completely rotted away due to its saturation in silt over a long period of time.