Xianyang lies immediately north-west of Xi'an, on the north bank of the Wei River, and in 221 BC it became the capital of the state that first unified China. The Qin court built its palaces here, and after the dynasty fell the site continued in use into the Han period. Almost none of that survives as architecture - the great palace complexes were destroyed at the end of the Qin - which is precisely why the city's museum matters: it is where the excavated evidence is kept.
What is in the museum
The strongest holdings are Han dynasty painted terracotta figures: ranks of officials, attendants, cavalrymen and horses, modelled and then painted, recovered from tombs in the surrounding plain. The painting survives unusually well on some pieces, which gives them a liveliness that unpainted figures lack. Alongside them the museum displays Qin and Han building materials - decorated tiles, roof ornaments, drains and bronze fittings - and weapons, coins and vessels that document how the capital was built and supplied.
The landscape around it
The Wei River plain between Xi'an and Xianyang holds an extraordinary concentration of tombs. The Qin and Han imperial mausoleums lie along the northern edge of the plain, several of them visible from the road as large earthen mounds, and the Western Han imperial tombs march westward in a line. Because they are unexcavated mounds in farmland rather than developed sites, they are easy to overlook - but for anyone interested in how the dynasties arranged their afterlives, the ride out to Xianyang is the fastest way to see the pattern.
Practical notes
Xianyang is close to Xi'an's airport and connected by metro and by road, so it fits naturally at the start or end of a trip, or as a half day from the city centre. The museum is modest in size; two hours is generous. Captions are mostly in Chinese. Combine it with the Han Yangling mausoleum museum east of Xianyang, which is the most visitor-friendly of the Han imperial tomb sites and displays the burial pits under a glass floor.
