The Tomb of Huo Qubing lies east of the Maoling in Xingping and is the best known of the tombs of Emperor Wu of Han’s courtiers. Huo Qubing was the Western Han general who fought the Xiongnu and died at twenty-four; the emperor had his burial mound piled up in the shape of the Qilian Mountains to honour his campaigns there. More than ten large stone sculptures stand on and in front of the mound – a horse trampling a Xiongnu warrior, a leaping horse, a recumbent ox and others – only lightly worked from the natural shapes of the stones, and Liang Sicheng thought them the most powerful stone carvings of any Han tomb.
