Xianyang city site in Qin Dynasty

Xianyang city site in Qin Dynasty

Xianyang city site of Qin Dynasty is located at Changling station, Yaodian Town, Weicheng District, about 15 kilometers east of Xianyang city center, Shaanxi Province. It is the capital site from the late Warring States period to the Qin Dynasty.

Xianyang, as the capital of Qin Dynasty, has been through seven generations for 144 years. Based on it, Xianyang made great efforts to rule the country, enrich the country and strengthen the army, and finally annexed the six countries, unified the world, and established the first feudal autocratic monarchy of China, the great Qin Dynasty. The capital of Xianyang was the political, economic and cultural center of the great Qin Dynasty.

In 1988, the State Council of the people's Republic of China announced it as the third batch of national key cultural relics protection units.

In 2010, Qin Xianyang city site was selected into the list of national archaeological sites park.

Historical evolution

In the 12th year of emperor Xiaogong of Qin Dynasty (350 BC), the capital of Qin Dynasty was Xianyang.

In the 13th year of emperor Xiaogong of Qin Dynasty (349 BC), he moved to Xianyang from Yongzhou.

In the 26th year of the first emperor of Qin Dynasty (220 BC), the king of Qin changed his name to emperor and called himself the first emperor, with the capital of Xianyang. In Xianyang, palaces of six kingdoms were built in Weibei, and palaces such as zhangtai and Shanglin were built in Weinan.

In the 27th year of the first emperor of Qin Dynasty (219 BC), Xingong was built in Weinan. Make the front hall of sweet spring. Build the "corridor" from Xianyang to Ganquan front hall.

In the 35th year of the first emperor of Qin Dynasty (212 BC), a Fang palace was built in Shanglin garden of Weihe River. The collection of "hidden palace and 700000 prisoners" is divided into a Fang front hall and Lishan mausoleum.

In the first year of Ziying (206 BC), Xiang Yu burned Xianyang City, which had been prosperous for hundreds of years.

From 1959 to 1961, the Weishui archaeological team of Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology discovered the Qin Xianyang Palace site near niuyang village.

From 1973 to 1982, the western half of site 1 and sites 2 and 3 within the palace wall were excavated, with a total area of 15168 square meters. Archaeological discoveries include carvings and horses, ceremonial guards, palace buildings, ears of wheat, flowers and other murals, which are of great value in the history of Chinese architecture and art. In Changxing village, tanmao village and Dianshang village in the southwest of Yaodian Town, there are residential areas and Pottery Workshop sites of the Qin Dynasty.

In 2014, Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology discovered five groups of large rammed earth building sites in Hujiagou tableland to the west of xianyangcheng site palace area.

In 2018, archaeologists found a group of large-scale national treasury building relics at the site of Xianyang City in Qin Dynasty.

In 2019, Shaanxi Provincial Institute of archaeology found a site for handmade stone armor of Qin Dynasty at the site of Xianyang City in Qin Dynasty.

Construction pattern

plan

Xianyang, the capital of Qin Dynasty, spanned the late Warring States period and the Qin Dynasty, which was a period of great changes in Chinese history. The planning concept of Xianyang was a reflection of ideology at that time. At first, Xianyang palace was the center of Xianyang capital. Later, Qin Shihuang intended to take Afang palace as the center. Xianyang became the only divergent capital in the Warring States period, which was never seen in the capital architecture at that time, forming a sharp contrast with the capital of six Oriental countries.

The characteristics of Xianyang city planning and design are prominently reflected in its "innovation", "dignity" and "broadness". However, Qin Xianyang did not comply with the regulations of the capital architecture in the book of rites of Zhou KAOGONGJI. It is different from the King City of Zhou and the capital city of the eastern vassal states. This is the innovation of Qin Xianyang. The "dignity" is reflected in the planning temperament of the city. The development of Xianyang symbolizes the imperial rule and the victory over the six Eastern countries. As a reasonable basis for the autocratic emperor, the integration of centralization and autocracy has become a major feature of Xianyang. This also shows that the legalist thought is fully expressed in the design of Qindu city. The so-called "broadness" means that a city should have a broad and solid foundation, broad mind and temperament, which can express the unprecedented momentum of unification. "Innovation", "dignity" and "broadness" do not exist in isolation. As far as the overall planning of Xianyang, the capital of Qin, is concerned, the three are the organic unity of interaction and complement each other.

 

idea

At the same time, Qin Xianyang's construction also integrated the idea of the unity of heaven, earth and man. In the capital planning, Xianyang capital and Tianji idea are combined to show the idea of supremacy of monarchy and divine power. From the whole implementation process, we can see that there is a corresponding relationship between the upper and the lower. The so-called correspondence refers to the vertical projection relationship between the plane points of the capital buildings and the plane points of the sky stars.

In the design of Qin's capital city, the main constellations around the zenith of the Milky way and the constellation of fairy queen in Xianyang and the main palaces near the hengqiao of the Weihe River are arranged on a vertical line in the evening before and after the winter solstice, so that the sky and the ground correspond to each other. With Xianyang palace as the Purple Palace, hengqiao as the attic Road, Afang palace as the barracks, and so on, actually the first emperor of Qin compared himself to the emperor of heaven.

 

Site features

overview

The site of Xianyang City in Qin Dynasty is located on Xianyang tableland, 15 kilometers east of Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province, and on the North Bank of Weihe River.

Xianyang city of Qin is the capital of Qin state during the Warring States period, and it is also the capital after Qin unified the six states and established the Qin Dynasty. In 350 B.C., Qin Xiaogong moved his capital to Xianyang. Shang Yang first built Ji Que in the city, and later Qin kings built many more palaces. In the process of unifying the whole country, Qin Shihuang absorbed the palace building model of the six countries in Kanto, imitated the palaces of the six countries and expanded the Imperial Palace on Xianyang plateau. The surging Wei River flows between the palaces, just like the Milky way across the sky, which is very spectacular. The whole Xianyang city "leaves the palace to leave the hall, the pavilions and pavilions, continuously presses for more than 300 Li, separates the day", between each palace by the road, the corridor connects, forms at that time the most prosperous metropolis.

 

Afang Palace Site

Afang palace is located in the qinshanglin garden in the south of Weishui river. The site is located in the north edge of Xinjun village, houwei village, nanwangsi village and Heping Village in the northwest of Sanqiao Town, Xi'an City, with a length of 5 km. It is bounded by Zaohe River in the East and ends at Jiyang village, Xiaosu village, Chang'an County (now Chang'an District) in the West. It is 3 km wide and covers an area of about 15 square kilometers. In this area, there are still more than 20 rammed earth foundations on the ground, including the foundation site of the front hall of Afang palace and the foundation sites of Shanglinyuan No.1 to No.6, LanChi palace, shangtiantai, sacrificial altar, cishimen, hero temple, etc.

 

Xianyang Palace Site

Xianyang palace, the main palace of Qin Dynasty, the political center and national symbol of Qin Dynasty. It covers an area of 3.72 square kilometers, five times the size of the Palace Museum of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. There are many palaces in the northern part of Xianyang City in Qin Dynasty, starting from Hujiagou village in Yaodian town in the West and baijiazui village in Xiaojia village in the East. Due to the influence of the Weihe River moving northward, the ruins are seriously damaged, and the overall layout is still not very clear. The Palace site has been found on the terrace in the north of Xianyang City, which is about the same as the place near the axis of the city. There is a group of Gaotai palace building sites. It is located on the East and west sides of Shangyuan Valley Road in the Qin Dynasty, which is divided into two parts: site 1 in the West and site 2 in the East. The site on the west side is well preserved. After the restoration of the site, we can see that it is a group of high terrace palaces with east-west symmetry, which are connected by the flying Pavilion across the Valley Road. It is a complex of terrace and pavilion with great artistic charm. The site is 60 meters long from east to west, 45 meters wide from north to south, with a platform 6 meters high and an L-shaped plane.

 

Fuku site

Fu Ku site is a large-scale official building discovered again in the large site protection area after the excavation of Qin Xianyang Palace site from 1970s to 1980s.

This group of sites is located in Yaodian Town, Xincheng town of the Qin and Han Dynasties in Xixian New District, and in Hujiagou tableland to the west of Xianyang palace District of the Qin capital. In 2014, Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology discovered five groups of large-scale rammed earth building sites. From 2016 to 2017, with the approval of the State Administration of cultural relics, the smaller group was finally selected for overall exposure.

This group of buildings is surrounded by rammed earth walls, which are about 3 meters thick, 110 meters long and 19.5 meters wide. There are four large rooms with similar structure inside, and each of them has different narrow walls. In addition to a large number of building materials such as plate tiles, tube tiles and hollow bricks, there are also many pieces of chimes. Although they are seriously broken, many of them have traces of use. Among them, 23 pieces have inscriptions on them, which are "Beigong Yuefu" of Qin Xiaozhuan characters.

The more important significance of the unearthed chimes lies in the inscriptions. This is not only the first time in the archaeology of Xianyang city to prove that the architectural property is the large-scale Government House of the Qin Dynasty, including the ritual and musical instruments such as stone chimes. It also confirms the historical facts of the establishment of Yuefu in the Qin Dynasty, and shows the grand scale of Yuefu in the Qin Dynasty.

 

Cultural relics

Murals of Xianyang Palace

There are three sites of Xianyang palace in the Qin Dynasty in Yaodian Town, 15 kilometers east of Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province. Among them, the 32.4-meter-long Qin Dynasty found in the third Palace site

Chinese PinYin : Qin Xian Yang Cheng Yi Zhi