Gongzhufen – The Princess Tombs (公主坟)
Peking · China · Cemetery
A young night worker saw people in ancient dress carrying a sedan chair along the platform — at the Princess Tomb the lost are said to still ride Line 1.
The Gongzhufen interchange, the Princess Tomb, takes its name from what lay beneath it: the graves of the Jiaqing Emperor's daughters Zhuangjing and Zhuangjing Gulun, who died two months apart in the spring of 1811, aged only 31 and 28. When metro Line 1 was driven through in 1965, archaeologists opened the tombs, lifted out swords, silk and jewellery and had the bodies moved — and ever since, people have talked about what moves down on the platform. A young station worker is said to have seen figures in ancient dress carrying a sedan chair past him in the dark one evening; others claim to have seen lost spirits travelling by sedan chair along Line 1, and women in Qing-era headdresses standing on the platform at Gongzhufen. Popular imagination was never satisfied with the truth about who lay there either: for generations the story told instead of a false Han Chinese princess, a tale that later inspired the television hit Princess Pearl.
FAQ
Where is Gongzhufen – The Princess Tombs (公主坟) located?
Gongzhufen – The Princess Tombs (公主坟) is in Peking, China.
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Accounts are drawn from local folklore and visitor reports.
Image: Lyuchenyu · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons