Shangtiantai site

Shangtiantai site

After nearly a year's archaeological investigation, exploration and partial excavation of more than 30 square kilometers to the east of the front hall site of Afang palace, archaeologists found that the legendary shangtiantai site of Qin Shihuang was actually a palace complex in Shanglin garden built during the Warring States and Qin Dynasties.

Relics of Qin Dynasty

500 meters to the east of the ruins of the front hall of Afang palace, there is a tall earthen platform with a circumference of about 310 meters and a height of about 20 meters. The local people call it "the roof of the first emperor", which is one of the most prominent architectural relics in the ruins of Afang palace. In the 1950s and 1970s, local people used to collect soil, build terraces and level up land on a large scale on the site. At that time, the headquarters was set up on the roof of the first emperor.

archaeological excavation

The archaeological team carried out large-scale investigation and exploration in the area of more than 30 square kilometers from the east end of the front hall of Afang palace in the west to Zaohe River in the East. Later, the focus of the excavation turned to the "shihuangshangtiantai", and the southern slope was dissected: the lower part of the site is a rammed earth platform with a thickness of 2.5 meters, which is in an irregular spindle shape. The main part in the middle is 111 meters from east to west and 74 meters from north to south. The west part is 25 meters from east to west and 36 meters from south to north, and the northeast part is 30 meters from east to west and 40 meters from north to south.

In the upper part of the rammed earth platform is the palace building, the existing part is 15.2 meters high, divided into three layers. There is no building at the bottom, which is 50-73 meters from east to west, 62 meters from north to south, and 8.1 meters high; the existing building in the middle is 5.1 meters long, 1.9-2.5 meters wide, and 0.9 meters high, and its architectural remains are a granite foundation stone in the South; the existing building at the top is 21 meters from east to west, 13 meters from north to south, and 6.2 meters high, and no trace of fire is found. In addition, with the high platform building as the core, ancillary buildings were found in the East, West and north of the building. Underground drainage facilities paved with pottery water pipes were found in many places. No building remains were found in the south of the building, but there was a sand layer about 1 meter underground. It might be an ancient river or lake, which might be a garden landscape for the ancients to climb high and face water.

Expert interpretation

Li Yufang, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and leader of the Afang palace archaeological team, said that the core of the upper Tiantai site is a high platform palace building, with rammed earth platform at the bottom and palace building at the top. It should be a high platform palace building that can be divided into three parts: the bottom, the middle and the top. This is basically the same as the form of the No.1 palace building site of Xianyang palace in the capital of Qin Dynasty, which is a typical high platform palace building in the Warring States period. From an archaeological point of view, this site is undoubtedly a palace complex with high platform architecture as the core built by the Warring States Qin Dynasty in Shanglinyuan. Because its age is earlier than the Afang palace, it has nothing to do with the Afang palace.

As for the scope of Afang palace, Li Yufang said: "although the East-West boundary has been set, and Afang palace does not exceed the East-West boundary of QianDian site, its north-south boundary still needs to be explored from the former palace site to the North-South two directions. That is to say, strip exploration will be carried out within tens of square kilometers between Weihe River and Qinling Mountains. By then, the scope of Afang palace will be basically clear .

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