BThe Ming Tombs are located about 50 kilometers to the northwest of Beijing. They are the tombs of the 13 feudal emperors of the Ming Dynasty (1368—14). The two main tombs for people to visit are Chang Ling and Ding Ling.Chang Ling, tomb of the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty, is the earliest and largest one among the 13 tombs. In front of the tomb is a hall. It is the place where the Ming rulers offered sacrifices (祭祀). This big hall, built 560 years ago in 1472, has an area of 1,900 square meters and is one of the biggest extant (尚存的) ancient wooden structures in China. In the hall there are several dozen big wooden columns. The largest four among them are each 14.3 meters high and 1.17 meters in diameter (直径). Two men with their arms stretched out cannot circle one column.Ding Ling, to the southwest of Chang Ling, is the tomb of Zhu Yijun. He ruled China for 48 years (1573—1620). In his 12th year as emperor he began to build his tomb. Then he was only 22 years old.Ding Ling’ tomb chamber, the underground palace, has an area of 1,900 square meters. It consists of five halls—front, middle, rear, left and right. They are all stone structures without columns. There are three stone doors in the front, middle and rear halls. They are very big, each weighing eight tons. In the center of the rear hall are placed three stone coffins (棺材). In the center is that of the emperor of himself while at left and right are those of his two empresses.It took altogether six years to build Ding Ling. Every day 30,000 civilian laborers took part in the extremely hard labor, in the course of which many of them lost their lives.In the Ding Ling tomb various kinds of cultural relics, over 2,000 of them, were discovered. Many of them are priceless treasures, for example, the two phoenix crowns of the empresses. Each has over 100 precious stones. All these are on display in the Ding Ling museum for public view Where are the Ming Tombs?