Afang Palace Site

Afang palace is the palace of Qin Dynasty. According to historical records, it was built in 212 BC. The site is located in Afang village, 15 kilometers away from the western suburb of Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province. It is a national key cultural relic protection unit.

Afang Palace Site

Afang Palace site, located in Afang village, Xixian New District, Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, is a large-scale palace building site to be built in the former Warring States and Qin Shanglin garden from the first emperor of Qin to the second emperor of Qin

.

The archaeological team searched 135 square kilometers, and found that there were no other buildings belonging to Afang palace except the ruins of the front hall of Afang palace.

They include the legendary beacon tower, the upper Tiantai, and the cishimen sites. However, archaeology has confirmed that these sites are all the buildings of Shanglin garden in the Qin and Han Dynasties, and have nothing to do with the Afang palace built by the first emperor of Qin Dynasty. QianDian site is the whole site of Afang palace,

It covers an area of 544000 square meters.

Archaeology shows that the Afang palace was not built or burned.

In 1961, the Afang Palace site was announced as the first batch of key cultural relics protection units in China

. In 1992, the UNESCO field survey confirmed that the Afang Palace site is a world miracle

.

Historical evolution

In the 35th year of the first emperor of Qin Dynasty (212 BC), due to the increasing number of people in Xianyang palace, the capital city, and the small size of the former king's palace, the emperor built a large-scale construction project on the basis of Shanglin garden in the south of Weihe River

.

In 1994, the cultural relics department of Xi'an city organized human resources to roughly delineate the scope of the Afang Palace site, which covers an area of 10.89 square kilometers, reaching Jizao River in the East, Jiyang village in the west, Heping Village in the South and Sanqiao town in the north. It includes the foundation site of the front hall of Afang palace and the rammed earth building foundation sites such as Shanglinyuan No.1-6 and hero temple

.

In October 2002, the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Xi'an Institute of cultural relics protection and Archaeology set up the Afang palace archaeology team

.

Around 2007, the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Xi'an Institute of cultural relics protection jointly released the archaeological results of the Afang Palace site. There are three core conclusions: first, the Afang palace has not been built at all; second, the front hall site is the whole site of Afang palace

Third, Xiang Yu did not burn the Afang palace

.

Site scope

Since November 2004, the archaeological team has focused on finding and determining the scope of the Afang Palace site.

By the end of November 2007, archaeologists had carried out a lot of investigation, exploration and excavation in the area of 135 square kilometers from the front hall site of Afang palace to Fenghe River in the west, Weihe River in the north, dongzhihe River in the south, and the North Bank of Kunming pool in the Han Dynasty. Among them, there are more than 10 major sites, including the legendary beacon tower, shangtiantai, and cishimen sites. However, archaeology has confirmed that these sites are the sites of the Qin and Han Dynasties The architecture of Lin Yuan has nothing to do with the a Fang palace built by Qin Shihuang.

Li Yufang pointed out that this determined that the scope of the unfinished Qin Afang palace is consistent with the scope of the current site of the front hall of the Afang palace. The front hall site of Afang palace is the site of Afang palace built by Qin Shihuang after the unification of Qin Dynasty.

QianDian site

Archaeology shows that the front hall of Afang palace is 1270 meters long from east to west, 426 meters wide from north to south, 7-9 meters high, and covers an area of about 544000 square meters (880 mu).

When building rammed earth platform foundation, in order to strengthen the stability of the platform foundation, the west, North and East edges of the platform foundation contract from the outside to the inside, forming two or three platforms. There are rammed earth walls on the west, North and east sides of the rammed earth foundation, with tile laying on the top of the wall; there is no south wall on the rammed earth foundation.

The width of the north wall above the platform foundation is 6.5 meters in the East and West. On the South and north sides of the wall, there are plate tiles, tube tiles and their fragments from the top of the wall. On the north side of the wall, there are three layers of shrinking platform of the platform foundation. The west part of the middle part of the north wall is 15 meters wide. On the south side of the wall, there are slabs and tube tiles and their fragments from the top of the wall. On the north side of the wall, there is a two-layer shrinkage platform of the platform foundation

.

The south side of the rammed earth foundation of the front hall is the road that people trampled on when building the foundation. According to the distribution of road soil, the soil used for ramming the foundation is transported from the south to the north, and then rammed gradually from the north to the south. Because the project has not been completed, the south wall on the platform foundation has not been built, and the road soil on the south side of the platform foundation has not been properly treated

.

architectural composition

According to Shihuang Benji, the front hall of Afang palace is 500 steps from east to west and 50 feet from south to north. Ten thousand people can sit in the hall and his highness can set up a flag five feet high. It is surrounded by the attic Road, from your highness to Nanshan. He built a palace valve on the peak of Nanshan Mountain and repaired the road. He crossed the Wei River from Afang palace to Xianyang.

In the Qin Dynasty, one step was six feet, three hundred steps was one Li, and the Qin Chi was about 0.23 meters. In this way, the front hall of Afang palace is 690 meters wide from east to west and 115 meters deep from north to south. It covers an area of 80000 square meters and can accommodate more than 10000 people.

The Afang palace described in historical records is about 110000 square meters, equivalent to one fourth of Tiananmen Square.

This is not up to 540000 square meters of the newly discovered rammed earth platform base of Afang palace.

Zhang Chuanxi, vice president, explained that the Afang palace is likely to be like the Taihe Hall of the Forbidden City, where "540000" is a tray type platform and "110000" is the main hall.

Li Yufang, leader of the archaeological team, told reporters that "540000 is not as large as the Forbidden City, but as a whole, the building foundation is the first in the world. The tyranny of the Qin emperor can be seen."

Other sites

Site 1 of Shanglin Garden

The base site of Shanglinyuan No.1 is 1150 meters to the west of the base site of the front hall of Afang palace. The building site is divided into the southern palace area (which was burned by fire) and the northern garden area. The existing rammed earth foundations of the palace buildings are 250 meters long from east to west and 45 meters wide from north to south, covering an area of about 11250 square meters. Some rammed earth foundations are 7 meters high above the surface of the earth. The corridor (1.65m wide) and apron (0.67M wide) were found on the western edge of the terrace; only one water landscape remains was found in the northern garden area due to serious damage. The remains are 31.2 meters long, and the main remains are stone canals paved with pebbles and distributed in the shape of a curved ruler (the width of stone canals is 2.9, the width of stone canals is 0.4, and the depth is 0.12-0.15 meters). A large number of building materials, such as floor tiles, side tiles, plate tiles, tube tiles and tiles, belonging to the Warring States period, were unearthed from the collapse of the site. It should be a typical architectural site of the Warring States period. Because the site is located in the Qin Shanglin garden to the south of the Weihe River, it is one of the buildings in the Shanglin garden built by the state of Qin in the Warring States period (numbered as the base site of Shanglin garden No.1). It is earlier than the Afang palace built by the first emperor of Qin and has nothing to do with the Afang palace

.

Base site of Shanglinyuan 2

500 meters south of the base site of Shanglinyuan No.1 and 1200 meters southwest of the base site of the front hall of Afang palace, there is a building site (it is said to be the beacon tower of Afang Palace). Through excavation, the lower part of the site is rammed earth platform, and the upper part is three-story building at the bottom, middle and top. Due to serious damage, only the building base and a small amount of pillar foundation stone are left. Its architectural form is basically the same as that of the site No.1 of Xianyang palace in the capital of Qin Dynasty. Also unearthed in the Warring States period of paving tiles, block side tiles, plate tiles, tube tiles and so on. Therefore, the building should be a high platform palace building built in the Warring States period. Because it is located in the Qin Shanglin garden south of the Weihe River, it is also one of the buildings built in the Qin Shanglin garden in the Warring States period (No. 2 base site of Shanglin garden). It was built earlier than the Afang palace built by the first emperor of Qin Dynasty. It has nothing to do with the Afang palace, and it is not the "beacon tower" of the Afang palace in folklore

.

Base site of Shanglinyuan No.3

The base site of Shanglinyuan No.3 is 3800 meters north of the base site of the front hall of Afang palace. The lower part of the building is rammed earth platform, and the upper part is building. The lower rammed earth platform foundation is 84 meters from east to west and 92 meters from north to south, with a thickness of 1.2-2 meters (raw soil and fine sand below). The superstructure is only in the northwest of the site, with a height of 7 meters. It is divided into three layers: the bottom, the middle and the top. There is no building at the bottom, with the maximum length of 54 meters from east to west and 42 meters from south to north; the maximum length of 24 meters from east to west and 28 meters from north to south of the existing base in the middle, with some vestiges of corridor on it. The depth of the corridor in the north is 5.1 meters, and there is a pilaster trace on its south wall. 2.8 meters to the north of the pilaster, there is an open pillar foundation stone. In addition, traces of murals were also found in the wall. According to the excavation data, the building was destroyed in the fire; there is no building on the top, and the maximum length of the existing base site is 19 meters from east to west and 21 meters from north to south

.

From the shape of the building, the lower part is rammed earth platform, and the upper part can be divided into three layers: the bottom, the middle and the top, which is basically the same as the No.1 palace building of Xianyang palace in the Qin capital. It is a high platform palace building in the Warring States period. It is located in the Shanglin garden built by the Qin State in the Warring States period to the south of the Weihe River, so it is one of the palace buildings in the Shanglin garden of the Qin State in the Warring States period. It was built before the unification of the Qin Dynasty, earlier than the time when the first emperor of the Qin dynasty built the Afang palace

.

Site 4, Shanglinyuan

No. 4 base site of Shanglinyuan is located 500 meters to the east of the base site of the front hall of Afang palace

Chinese PinYin : A Fang Gong Yi Zhi