It marks the tomb of a woman who rose from lowly concubine to become emperor of China

The only woman to dare claim that title

But China's female Emperor has gone down in history as a controversial and deeply divisive ruler

To have a woman with such power

really threatened the establishment

Not only did Wu Zetian rock the boat in some ways. She overturned it

It would have been a very dangerous thing to get in the way of Wu Zetian

Since her death 1,300 years ago wu zetian has been remembered as a callous tyrant who brought calamity to china

But now

Extraordinary new discoveries are revealing a very different picture of her reign from ancient tombstones

I've been waiting since this was excavated. I am ecstatic

to Buddhist temples

I honestly wasn't expecting that that is really exciting seeing this with your eyes is incredible experience

Lost treasures have even more fantastic than I thought it would be

Now for the first time experts are discovering how one woman managed to rule all the Imperial China

And whether Wu Zetian really was an evil dictator or one of the most misunderstood leaders in history

The only female emperor in China's 2,000 years of Imperial history was named Wu Zetian

move the celestial

She first entered court in 637 ad as a 13 year old concubine

Part of the hareem of mistresses serving emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty

Tang Taizong had more than a hundred concubines by repute. She was beautiful. She was charming. She was entertaining

She also had a real zest for life

Concubine Wu soon got herself noticed

When she entered the palace

She quickly gained favour of this emperor and her relationship of become closer and with the rise her of her influence at court

and

She proved to be politically very very skilful and she's very shrewd

When the old Emperor died Wu Zetian became at first concubine to his son Gaozong

Then in 655 he made her his Empress

But emperor gaozong was a sickly man

And gradually Wu became the real power behind the throne

Until in 690 with her husband dead Wu Zetian stepped from the shadows and declared herself Emperor

Yet China's ancient chroniclers were scathing in their accounts of her rise to power

History tells us a really dark and bleak picture about Empress Wu

One of the most brutal stories we have is that she killed her own child just to frame the previous Empress and

gain station at court

We're also told that Wu Zhao had her two

Rivals legs and arms cut off and then dip them in a vat of wine and let them slowly bleed to death

So this paints a picture of a devious

manipulating

calculating

self-serving and absolutely ruthless Virago

hell-bent on power

Even after she claimed the throne we're told Wu Zetian was ruthless in her reign

This is the tomb of Wu Zetian's second son Li Xian. He was a threat to his mother

Li Xian was accused of treason and he was exiled to the most remote

corner of the Chinese Empire locked in a room and

forced to commit suicide by poisoning

So this is a mother killing her own son so that she can hold on to power

Wu Zetian led China for nearly 50 years

According to legend she was a tyrant whose reign brought disaster to the Empire

Now archaeologists run earthing new evidence the challenges this version of Wu's story

The professor Zhang Jianlin is the world's leading archaeologists to the tang era

Today the city of Xian has grown to encompass old Chang'an, Wu's capital

The population of 12 million Xian is rapidly expanding

It's also home to professor Zhang's conservation facility

Historian dr. Harry Rothschild has heard about some intriguing recent finds that date to Wu's rein. Whoa

It's amazing seeing all these Tang artifacts

I've been studying Wu Zhao, Wu Zetian for 17 years and finally here

We are at Ground Zero you can sense her everywhere here in Chang'an

The figurines show life in Wu's capital the musicians traders and nobles buried with the dead to ensure a comfortable

afterlife

but there's also something unexpected here a

first clue to what Wu's China was really like

So we're looking at an unprecedented boost for the position of women

you're talking about a female Emperor here after all and and so that

Translated directly in this sort of greater opportunity and greater freedom for women in the late 7th in early 8th century

It seems like there may be more to Wu Zetian that meets the eye

Ancient chroniclers denigrated her reign

But many recent tomb discoveries like the women in men's clothing hinted a rather different story

Professor Tonia Eckfeld is an expert on Tang era tombs

She's on her way to see one of the most amazing archaeological finds in all Chinese history

It's amazing it's even more fantastic than I thought it would be

This is the fabled Phoenix crown of ancient China a

long-lost treasure from the Tang era

written about in ancient texts, but never seen

until now

This priceless headdress is held under lock and key and can only be viewed by special appointment

Tonia believes that is a vital clue to the truth about Wu Zetian's China

There's an enormous amount to investigate in this piece

Looking closely the metal work is filigree, and there's a lot of granulation

Granulation consists of tiny little beads of gold

The whole crown is like a peacock displaying its tail

There are very very fine flowers made of mother-of-pearl and pearl. There are even fine bunches of grapes made of Chinese glass

So really what we see here is something

cosmopolitan and something rich

something fashionable full of

luxury items not only in the making of it, but also in the imagery involved

Professors Jung's team found the Phoenix crown in a grave that was already in exceptional find, a tomb that had never been raided

Inside was a skeleton and on the skull the beehive hairstyle

studded with jewels

The skeleton was of a young woman named Li Chui a minor descendant of the Tang royal family

For 18 months the team carefully picked out every single jewel and stone

Slowly piecing together the headdress to reveal its true glory

But when they used x-ray chromatography to discover where the different jewels and stones came from they were in for a surprise

The headdress has carnelian from Uzbekistan

2,900 miles to the west of Chang'an, garnet from India 3,000 miles southwest

Amber from Iran 4,000 miles away and ivory from Sri Lanka

4500 miles from Wu's capital

The crown gives us clues about Wu Zetian's society. Life was rich. There's a lot of luxury

It was a real high point in the arts

What we can see here is the embodiment of all of the wealth and all of the treasure that the Tang court could attract

Li Chui wasn't even a princess if she was buried wearing this priceless headdress

Clear evidence of the extraordinary wealth of China at the time

Her tomb holds one final secret

She was buried with the Jade silkworm in her hand

Another clue that reveals Wu's ambitions to make her China the wealthiest empire in the world

In seventh century China a woman named Wu Zetian rose from lonely concubine to Empress

With her husband, the Emperor's sick. She ruled the Empire in all but name

Ancient chroniclers dismissed her reign as a time of calamity

But today's experts think the truth may be very different

In a tomb 50 miles northwest of wu's capital city, Chang'an

Tonia Eckfeld is investigating murals that provide strong evidence of Wu's influence and power

Here we can see a mural of foreign ambassadors coming to court

Ambassadors came from far and wide in this mural we can see a Mongolian a Korean and a townshend monk

perhaps from Rome or Syria

There's a man from Xinjian from Greece and from Persia

It's interesting because we can see that the The Ambassadors are in

quite subservient positions their hands are clasped before them and

Seem quite in awe of the situation

The mural suggests that Wu Zetian was a respected international leader of her time

I think Wu Zetian was a consummate politician

she saw advantage in the use of

diplomacy rather than warfare and led the society that was quite open and open to foreigners

Many foreigners at high level beat a path to her door

Recent research suggests that there were 25,000 foreigners living in Wu's Chang'an

Many were traders and more than anything, they were after one Chinese product.

Since the 4th millennium BC China had produced the finest quality silk

By Wu's era the demand for Chinese silk had made it as valuable as gold

The ancient trade routes of the Silk Road began in Chang'an spreading east and west linking China to other nations

But by the mid 7th century bandits and robbers threatened to stop trade in its tracks

new discoveries reveal Wu Zetian's master strain

She built military outposts far into Central Asia securing safe passage all along the Silk routes

Harry Rothschild has come to the very start of the Silk Road in Chang'an to find the latest archaeological evidence of trade in Wu's capital

This is incredible. We've been allowed to come right down here into the Western market

We're standing right on the edge of the canal

looking right across into this square where you had all of these stalls arrayed where rows of iron mongers and butchers and

tanner's and

silversmiths, goldsmith's, calligraphy brush salesmen would be arrayed where you could find anything under the Sun

If you get down closely here you can see

Ruts that have been left in in the earth

From the carts that went over this bridge you really feel the ambience of the Western market

In Wu Zetian's Chang'an, the east and west markets marked the start of the silk road

In the West market goods from lands to the west of Chang'an were bought and sold

Silk Road trade not only made Wu's Empire wealthy it brought so many

foreigners to China that her capital became one of the first truly

cosmopolitan cities in the world. People from all across the world traveled to China and many chose to stay

And this multicultural influence can still be felt in present day Xi'an

We are walking along the Huimin street the Chinese Muslims street on the very heart of old

Tang China and it is bustling it is vibrant. It is full of energy

As you see by the milling bustle going on behind me now

I think these are sugared figs or dried figs here

these came from along the Silk Road from from Persia

So this is a kind of wheat kernel candy

and he's pulling this taffy then afterwards they'll take the taffy and they'll

Roll it out with pumpkin seeds or with sesame seeds and then turn it into this hard candy

The sesame came from Persia and the Middle East along the Silk Road

So this is this is sort of the fruit of something that was trafficked thirteen hundred years ago during Wu Zetian's time

It is good. I think in terms of the

multiculturalism the vibrance the bustle the energy just the constant commercial buzz

You have a great sense of what was going on during the time

By 662 with her husband the Emperor ill Empress Wu Zetian was an effective control of the whole Chinese Empire

Trade had brought wealth and luxury

Evident from the valuable artifacts that have been found and Wu wanted to flaunt this to the rest of the world

To do this she planned the expansion of the Imperial Palace on a scale never seen before

When archaeologists first uncovered the foundations they were amazed by what they found

This is one of the huge gated entrances rebuilt to scale on those very foundations

This is Danfeng Gate the southern gate of Daming palace

Just looking up at it it conjures a sense of awe

For me

It's a statement

It provides a sense of Imperial grandeur

It makes any one sort of standing before the gate feel a sense of their own smallness and insignificance

Wu Zetian's Daming Palace was the largest in the world

Completed in just three years the scale of the complex outshone anything anyone had ever seen

Look at the size of Daming Palace

This is twice as big as old pompeii

It's five times bigger than the Forbidden City of the Ming and Qing Dynasty Emperor's it's twenty-two times the size of the Acropolis

The scope the grand juror. It's it's absolutely staggering.

You can read about it

but you don't really appreciate that magnitude until you step out on this balcony and you look out at this vista

There are archery grounds. There are polo grounds, cockfighting arenas,

places for drama troops to practice and that's just the beginning. There are three or four more palaces beyond that

Emissaries coming from foreign countries would come in with their jaws dropping with just a sort of starry-eyed

wonder and they would feel like they were looking at a celestial world a paradise on earth.

I do think that was about imposing her power with the majesty and size of Daming Palace

But Harry thinks this place is unusual in more than just its extreme size

Chang'an when it was first designed was the model of perfect Imperial symmetry

The old Imperial Palace was in the north central position within the Tang capital Chang'an. This new Daming Palace

was outside of the city walls altogether. It's very unusual to build a palace

outside of this usual model of imperial symmetry

there's one good reason for 12 years Wu Zhao had

languished in the old imperial palace. For her,

this was a chance to get a new start to distance herself from her lowly and obscure past as a fifth rank talent

Here where you have this stunning new imperial grandeur

was an opportunity to sort of reinvent herself

It's becoming clear that Wu Zetian made China a global superpower

Contrary to how the legends were written she was at the center of a web of trade

wealth and political influence that stretched from Japan to the Mediterranean

In the seventh century Wu Zetian's capital city Chang'an was in a class of its own

So Chang'an during Wu Zetian's time would have been an absolutely massive city

There's supposed to be almost a million people living within the city walls and another million outside

which just outclasses anything else in the world at that time

Jonathan Dugdale from Birmingham University thinks he knows one reason for Wu Zetian's remarkable success

She would win the support of the common people through the reinvigorated religion that was sweeping China

Buddhism

Wu Zetian realized patronizing Buddhism was a great way to please the people and what better way than building new temples and pagodas

So one of the main ones she built was this one right behind this the great wild goose pagoda

The great goose pagoda was originally built in 652

As someone who studied pagodas for a long time, this is

particularly awesome

The pagoda was an important temple housing sacred Buddhist writings

But just 50 years after it was built. It was destroyed in an earthquake

Wu, who had been brought up in the Buddhist faith spending time in a nunnery,

decided to rebuild the pagoda but on a much bigger scale