Qianling Wordless Stele, Stone monument at Qianling Mausoleum, China

The Qianling Wordless Stele is a single-piece stone shaft 7.53 m tall, 2.1 m wide and 1.49 m deep, weighing 98.8 tonnes, standing on the east side of the processional way at Qianling. Eight intertwined dragons are carved in relief near the top, and the base bears horses, lions and cloud patterns. A diagonal crack crosses its upper left face.

The stele was erected for Wu Zetian (624–705), China's only female emperor, at the Qianling Mausoleum where she is buried with her husband Emperor Gaozong. It stands on the east side of the processional way, facing Gaozong's inscribed stele on the west. According to Wu Zetian's testament, her merits and faults were to be judged by later generations, and the stone was left without an inscription. From the Song dynasty onward, visitors added inscriptions; the earliest is dated 1103.

The name comes from the absence of an original inscription; the Qing-dynasty Yongzhou Jinshi Ji already noted that both faces were blank. From the Song dynasty onward visitors carved poems and notes into the stone, leaving 42 texts by 39 people, the earliest dated 1103. A 1134 inscription by the Jin prince Wanyan Zongyao pairs an unknown script with a Chinese translation, later identified as early Khitan small script.

The monument is accessible through visits to the entire mausoleum complex, located in a historical site northwest of Xi'an. Visitors should allow time to explore the full grounds and view the stone carvings from different angles.

The blank face was later covered: 39 visitors left 42 inscriptions, the earliest by Gu Zhengshu in 1103. A 1134 inscription by Wanyan Zongyao pairs an unknown script with a Chinese translation; in the 1920s it was identified as early Khitan small script, solving a puzzle a Japanese scholar had called a mystery of the twentieth century.