The Xianyang Pyramids

While searching through some satellite images of the Xi’an area, we came across one that appeared to have an arrow on it, we thought strange having an arrow on the ground. On closer inspection we realised that we had found one of the Chinese pyramids, the point of the arrow was really two of the corners of the pyramid and the shaft was a roadway.

The original image has a cloud haze covering the whole area, resulting in a very low contrast image. Even so the main pyramid is clearly visible with a smaller pyramid just up to its left. We now used the computer to enhance the image, allowing us to see more detail. There now appeared to be possibly two more pyramids off to the right hand side of the main one.

The next task was to see if this pyramid matched any of the ones that had been already photographed by Hartwig Hausdorf. At first we thought no, but we had missed out the old black and white photo from 1947. This image seemed to match perfectly, as you will see.