The prototype of the nine-story demon pagoda is Xuewei No. 1 Tomb, which is located in the Shuishui Ancient Tombs Group in Dulan County, Qaidam Basin, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

In the 1950s, archaeological workers discovered two ancient tombs near the Yindel Sheep Farm in Hotwater Township, Dulan County, and named them the "Shuihui Tombs". In 1996, the Shuishui Tombs were announced as the fourth batch of national key cultural relics protection units, and were also rated as one of the "Top Ten New Archaeological Discoveries in the Country in 1996".

The ancient tomb that was stolen from 2016 to 2017 was the Xuewei No. 1 Tomb among the hot water tombs. Judging from the existing archaeological data, this tomb was built between 700 and 704 AD, and the owner of the tomb should be a certain Tuyuhun king or noble.

The origin of the "nine-story demon tower"

In 663 AD, Tuyuhun established friendly relations with the Tang Dynasty and became affiliated with each other. It was during this period that Tubo led an army to attack Tuyuhun. At that time, Tuyuhun very much hoped that the Tang Dynasty could send troops to help him defeat the Tibetan army.

Because the terrain in Tibetan areas is rugged and Tuyuhun is only a small country, the benefits it brought to the Tang Dynasty were not great. Therefore, the Tang Dynasty only sent a small army and a small amount of materials to support Tuyuhun, just to show off. In the end, due to the huge disparity in strength between the enemy and ourselves, Tuyuhun was destroyed by Tubo.

After Tubo occupied the Tuyuhun territory, they were afraid of the enemy's revenge, so they followed the mage's suggestion and buried the corpses of all the Tuyuhun people near Dulan County. Then a nine-story wooden structure ancient tomb was built. This is the origin of the "nine-story demon tower".