Shaanxi Tang Daming Palace contains the excavation of the Yaomen ruins
Archaeology, No. 11, 1988 Xi'an Tangcheng Task Force, Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Han Yao Men is one of the main palace gates of the Ming Dynasty official Han YuanDian's court, located in the middle of the second palace wall on the east side of the Han Yuan Hall, 221 meters away from the ruins of the Han Yuan Hall. The Chongming Gate with yaomen gate facing the third palace wall to the north, the zhaoxun gate of the first official wall to the south, and the Wangxian Gate to the south of the palace (picture 1) is further south.
In order to prevent further destruction, excavations began on April 9 0, 1987, and by the end of the excavation on May 25, the excavation area was 65. square metre. The participants in the excavation were Comrades Ma Dezhi and Feng Xiaotang.
First, the formation
In recent years, due to the increase in nearby residents, a passage has been formed on the site, so the damage is more serious. The strata here are simple, and after removing the ground topsoil, the site of the gate and the rammed earth wall site on both sides of it are exposed. This area due to the leveling of farmland, the terrain becomes flat, in the Tang Dynasty here is the southern slope of Longshouyuan, the terrain is high in the north and low in the south, it is a slope, therefore, the Tang Dynasty ground on the north side of the gate site is more than 0.8 meters higher than the ground on the south side of the gate, so the layers south of the gate site are thicker and can be divided into three layers. Now take the south side of the strata as an example, its accumulation is as follows.
The first layer: a topsoil layer, 0.25-0.35 meters thick, formed as a modern pavement layer after the land is leveled.
The second layer: it is a modern disturbance layer, earth color yellow-brown, thick 0.3-0.45 meters, depth of 0.55-0.7 meters. The soil is relatively pure and free of debris.
The third layer: the accumulation layer after the door is destroyed, 0.45-0.8 meters thick and 1.05-1.4 meters deep. The earth is gray-brown, mixed with a large number of Tang Dynasty bricks. Tile fragments and a few pieces of porcelain. Inside the doorway, there are burned wood ash and braised clay blocks. The rammed earth walls on both sides of the doorway were also burned by fire, forming a layer of red-burned earth surface, which can be seen
Below the third layer, the Tang Dynasty ground layer is 1.2-1.4 meters deep from the current surface. The ground is generally yellow soil, and some parts are brown soil, which is the living soil formed by the flat ground at that time, and the lower part is also raw soil.
2. Door address
The gate is north-south, 1°30' east-north. The plan of the gate site is rectangular, with an east-west length of 26.4 meters and a north-south width of 12.5 meters (plate three, 1, 2).
The gate is divided into two doorways, east and west, the southern part of the west gate road is occupied by private houses, only the northern half has been excavated, and the east doorway has been fully excavated (plate, 1; figure 2, ). From the excavation phenomenon, it can be seen that after the door was burned and destroyed, it was disturbed and destroyed, but the shape of the door is still clearly recognizable.
The flat seat of the gate site is divided into three parts: the pier at both ends and the partition wall between the doorway and the second doorway. All are built in loess version, with bricks and leather, and the thickness of the bricks is 0.3 meters. The two ends of the door piers are 6.2 meters wide from east to west (with bricks, the same below), and 12.5 meters from north to south. The remaining height is 0.25-0.35 meters on the north side (counting from the ground of the Tang Dynasty, the same below), and the south side is 1.16 meters (plate, 2). Outside the brick walls on the north and south sides, there are scattered water remnants, and the width of the scattered water is unknown due to the destruction. The middle partition wall is 3.9 meters wide (thick), 12.5 meters long from north to south, and the remaining height is 0.45 at the north end and 1.2 meters at the south end.
The East Gate Is 5.15 meters wide and 12.5 meters deep, while the West Gate Road is 4.95 meters wide, slightly narrower than the East Gate Road, and only a section of 6 meters in the north has been excavated. There are ruts in the East Gate Road, and there are no ruts on the West Gate Road.
The pillars and sills on both sides of the doorway have not been destroyed, but the pits of the stone foundations are still clear. There are nine stone foundation pits on each side of the East Gate Road, with a spacing of about 1 meter (middle one), when it is the stone foundation pit of the Paiyi Pillar (Figure 3). On the northern side of the doorway), there is a regular rectangular pit on the east and west, which may be the stone foundation pit of the door frame (standing hat) (Fig. 4). Ximendau is the same. It seems that the door is located in the north of the doorway, not in the middle.
The shape of the door is basically the same as the Tang Dynasty gate excavated in the past, and it is also a wooden frame doorway, only the difference in scale. From the excavated tiles and tiles, it is possible that there may be a gate tower on the door.
The two ends of the door pier are connected to the official wall of the banzhu, which is 5.9 meters wide. A section of the excavated wall site has bricks on both sides, and the remaining brick walls on the south side are more than 1 meter high.
On the south side of the gate site, 6.7 meters from each end of the gate pier to the outside, there is a version of the wall site to the south in the east and west, and the north end of the wall is connected with the palace wall (the second palace wall) at both ends of the gate site. The width (thickness) of the wall is 4.5 meters, and the residual height is 0.65 meters. The part of the east wall in the exploration side is more than 8 meters long, and after the probe is extended to the south by 15 meters, it enters the factory area and stops drilling (follow-up exploration). Only one trench was excavated on the western wall, and it was verified that there was also the same wall site as the eastern one. The distance between the two walls is 39.9 meters from east to west, and it is not known whether the south may go up to zhaoxun gate or further south. Further exploration is yet to be verified. Between these two walls, a north-south hutong-style street is formed, which isolates the left and right buildings and becomes a tightly enclosed type, thus highlighting the situation on the axis of the Daming Palace.
The above is the general situation of the Site of Han Yaomen. In addition, two pillar foundation stones, one foundation pit and part of the brick laying were found on the north side of the gate site. The two pillar foundation stones are located on the east and west sides outside the north entrance of the East Gate Road, next to the north wall of the gate pier. The stone foundation on the east side is square, 54 cm long, 54 cm wide, 15 cm thick, and has a round birch eye with a diameter of 12 cm and a depth of 10 cm. 50 cm to the northeast of the foundation, there are two paving bricks. A stone foundation on the west side, in the northeast corner of the north end of the doorway partition wall, the stone foundation is 56 cm long, 51 wide, 15 cm thick, and has no Zen eyes. At 2.5 meters on the west side of this foundation, that is, in the northwest corner of the koukou partition wall, there is a pillar pit, the foundation has been lost, only the pit remains. On the north side of the West Gate Pier, there are no stone foundations or pits, only some of which are paved with bricks. The above-mentioned stone foundations and paved bricks, etc., were built on the ground in the early Tang Dynasty, about 10 centimeters above the early ground, which is a relic built later than the gate site. Due to the relative damage, the shape of the building can no longer be seen. However, judging from the stone foundations, the laying bricks, and the early ground pressed underneath, and attached to the door piers, it seems that the architectural remains added to the north side of the Hanyao Gate in the middle and late Tang Dynasties.
3. Relics from the soil
Most of the relics are found in the third layer of accumulation inside the doorway and on both sides of the door. The relics are mostly bricks and tiles, and there are very few porcelain pieces; In addition, 2 small bronze Buddhas and 2 ceramic relief Buddha statues were produced in the doorway. They are briefly introduced.
There are two types of bricks: rectangular bricks and square bricks.
Rectangular bricks have unearthed the most, most of them are fragments, all of which are blue-gray. Partially complete, there are three sizes: length 30, width 14, thickness 5.5 cm, length 32, width 14, thickness 4.5 cm, length 32, width 16, thickness 7.5 cm. The surface of the rectangular brick is printed with "craftsman-made official bricks" and the names of craftsmen, a total of 23 pieces (plate Wu, 6). There are 9 handprints printed on the back of the bricks. Yu Junguang is light-free.
There are two kinds of square bricks, lotus pattern square bricks and plain square bricks, all of which are fragments, and none of them are complete. Among them, there are 30 lotus pattern square bricks and 7 plain square bricks.
Tiles have plate tiles and barrel tiles. They are all fragments, most of which are bluish gray, and a small number of so-called "green" tiles with a black, shiny surface.
There are 20 tiles in total. Except for 1 complete piece (Plate Wu, 4, 5), the rest are fragments.
A total of 45 black and white porcelain pieces were produced. Most of them are bowls, plate fragments, pot (note) handle and 1 piece each.
2 small bronze Buddhas (plate Wu, 3). One piece of the statue is relatively complete, with a height of 10.5 cm. This small bronze Buddha statue has been found in the Qinglong Temple, Ximing Temple, and the doorway of the Imperial City with light gates. The other 1 piece, residual height 6.5 cm. The so-called "Buddha" is seven consecutive statues, only four remain, and there are many identical small bronze statues in the ruins of Ximing Temple (Plate Wu, 7).
2 pieces of Pottery Buddha statue. Generally known as ''Good Karma Clay Statue', all are clay red pottery, rectangular in shape, and one side is a relief Buddha statue, all of which are molded. The larger one, 8 cm high, 6.2 cm wide and 1.3 cm thick. The smaller one is 7 cm high, 4.3 cm wide and 1 cm thick (Plate Wu, 1, 2). This kind of pottery statue has been found in many places at the site of Ximing Temple, and has also appeared in the ruins of Hanguang Gate.
The above is a general situation of the excavations and excavated relics of the Yaomen site. There are six such palace gates on the three official walls in the south of Damingguan, which are on both sides of the central axis and lead north to the inner court. Han Yao Gate is one of them, from the excavation of the situation, the scale of the door is quite large, there are east and west walls outside the door, it seems that the official court access control is particularly strict. The Tang Dynasty sites excavated in the past are all one, three or five doorways, all of which are singular, while the Han Yao Gate is two doorways. I wonder if the gates of each palace are like this, or whether they have two doorways with separate doors due to special needs? Other sites have yet to be excavated for verification.
The two parallel south-facing official walls to the south of the gate site may reach the Zhaoxun Gate, or further south to the Wangxian Gate. The discovery of these two walls is very revealing and provides a basis for restoring the layout of the southern part of Damingguan.
The southern part of Daming Palace is mostly occupied by urban buildings, and many ruins have yet to be further explored, hoping to gradually explore them clearly.