Paper long abstract:

This talk explores a single-chamber, brick structure, ten-meters-square in base dimensions, thirteen meters in height, and covered by a dome, that stands on the grasslands about 7.5 meters southeast of the center of the town of Guyuan. The building is known by the names Shuzhuanglou (Comb and Make-up Tower) and Xiliangge (West Cool Pavilion). The first name is a reference to the fact that it was part of the appanage of Empress Dowager Chengtian (932–1009) of the Liao dynasty. The reason for the second name is unknown.

Excavation beneath the building in 2000 revealed three wooden coffins, one containing a male and the other females, clothing, and other artifacts including glazed ceramic tiles. The burial goods point to a Chinese tomb occupant, but the structure, all brick and of the dome-on-square style used for mausoleums in Samarkand and western Xinjiang from the tenth through fourteenth centuries, argues that this is the tomb of a Muslim. A Muslim grandson of Khubilai Khaghan has been proposed as the interred.

In recent years, inscribed bricks with the name Kuolijisi have been found at the site. Depending on whether one interprets the four characters as Giwargis or Korguz, the name would be Syriac for at least two different people, one of whom is Christian.. This paper examines all proposed possibilities for the occupant of the Guyuan tomb, as well as the current Chinese understanding of the site. but argues that the strongest evidence is that the Guyuan tomb belongs to a man who converted to Islam, and that its location was a key factor in the construction of the Yuan central capital between 1308 and 1311.