CHAPTER 2
Architecture of the First Emperor and His Predecessors
Upon the move of the capital to Luoyi (Luoyang), the Zhou
controlled less of China than they had for most of the previ-
ous three hundred years. Instead, dozens of states rose, built
cities, and vied for power during the period known as Spring
and Autumn. Cast iron appeared in China around the eighth
century BCE, making metal weaponry easier to produce and
cheaper, in addition to the use of iron in agricultural imple-
ments.1 Bronze and jade technology became more sophisti-
cated, with inscriptions on bronze vessels remaining an impor-
tant source of information about the major historical figures
of the period and their states. Writings of this Classical Age
of Chinese thought provide information directly relevant to
architecture and ceremonies in and around it, and thousands
of tombs offer information about building technology as well
as objects that filled them.
Rulers’ Cities
Passages in texts of the early centuries CE have guided the
understanding of architectural remains dated from the
Western Zhou through the early Spring and Autumn period
in the region of central Shaanxi known as Zhouyuan, the
area that once belonged to the state of Qin, discussed in the
previous chapter. The phrase qian(you)chao, hou(you)qin, or “in
front, audience hall; behind, private (or resting) chambers,” a
reference to the placement of buildings in imperial settings,
is almost iconic:2 it was observed at Majiazhuang and is still
in place in the Forbidden City, where the Three Front Halls
were for audience and other court functions and the Back
Halls were for imperial residence; and when the empress held
audience in the Back Halls sector, she slept behind her hall
of audience. Her position behind the emperor was further
demonstration of the greater importance of a front building
or complex and lesser significance of architecture behind. The
idea that the more public space of a ruler is in front of where
he lives and sleeps is in evidence at every Chinese imperial city
from the third century onward and will be implemented in
tomb and cave-temple construction.
One passage from “Kaogongji” (Record examining trades or
crafts [including construction]), a section of the Zhouli (Rituals
of Zhou), has emerged as preeminent in writing about Chinese
cities. It is a prescription for Wangcheng (ruler’s city). Like the
rest of “Kaogongji,” the passage is believed to refer to Zhou
practices, even though the text survives probably from the
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 20
period of Western Han.3 Wangcheng is to be a square whose
four wall positions are determined by measuring out from a
midpoint according to the sun’s shadow. Each side of the wall
is 9 li, the number nine associated with fullness and perfection
and, by extension, with royalty. Major thoroughfares are to
cross the entirety of Wangcheng from wall to opposite wall.
The central thoroughfares, however, are blocked by the ruler’s
palace, positioned in its own walled enclosure. The palace faces
south with markets behind it, a temple to the ruler’s ancestors
on the east, and altars to soil and the five grains on the west
(figure 2.1).4 A civilization of archetypical images, ever aware
of and building on its past and at times resisting innovation,
Chinese imperial urbanism shows resonances of this idealized
plan through the rest of China’s imperial history. Yet already in
the Eastern Zhou dynasty alternate arrangements of Chinese
rulers’ cities existed.
A key feature prescribed for Wangcheng persists: the pal-
ace-city, or gongcheng. Indicated in Shang and earlier capitals,
a designated, walled palace area is found in almost every Zhou
city where a ruler resided. The evidence is stronger in Eastern
Zhou than Western, for as mentioned above, once the Zhou
capital moved east, contenders for power increased, and with
time, the sizes of cities of those who prevailed increased as well.
The many Eastern Zhou cities divide into only four plans.
The city Wangcheng described in the “Kaogongji” is the
Zhou capital Luoyi, which was squarish, about 3 kilometers on
each side, and surrounded by a moat. A few building founda-
tions have been excavated, but not enough remains to confirm
that it followed the prescription for an ideal ruler’s city. Qufu,
in Shandong province, where Confucius was born in 551 BCE,
and Anyi in Shanxi are the closest Eastern Zhou examples to
the Wangcheng plan. The late Longshan city Guchengzhai,
mentioned in chapter 1, may have had this plan as well. Qufu,
capital of the state of Lu from the reign of King Cheng in the
eleventh century until conquest by the state of Chu in 249 BCE,
was surrounded by a rectangular wall with rounded corners
that measured about 3.7 kilometers east to west and 2.7 kilo-
meters north to south, all enclosed by a 30-meter-wide moat
(figure 2.2). The wall had eleven gates, two on the south side
and three on each other face. Ten major thoroughfares ran
through the city, five north-south and five east-west, each ema-
nating from a city gate or leading to an important building.
Large building foundations in an area of about 1,000 by 500
meters, roughly in the center of the outer wall, are believed
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 Architecture of the First Emperor

to be from an enclosed palace-city. Three foundations on an

axial line are believed to have supported a gate, palatial hall,
and altar. That area was inside the confines of the Han-period
city wall, which shared its southern and western border with
part of the Zhou city but was outside a later wall that survives
in part today.5 The Eastern Zhou city at Anyi in Xia county
of southwestern Shanxi had much in common with the Lu
capital in Shandong. Both were oriented northeast-southwest.
Measuring 4.5 kilometers north-to-south and 2.1 kilometers
east-to-west, Anyi’s palace area was roughly in the center of
a much larger outer city. The Anyi city was last studied in the
early 1960s, so we do not have the kind of information available
for the capital of the Lu state. In the 1960s Anyi went by the
name Yuwangcheng, city of King Yu, Yuwang also the name of
the village where it was found.6
The second urban pattern of the Eastern Zhou period is
represented by Jiang, the capital of the state of Jin in Shanxi
province. Here the roughly rectangular outer city wall was 8.48
kilometers in perimeter, surrounded by a moat. The 1-kilo-
meter-square inner city was in the north center, sharing a
boundary with the north outer wall. A street of more than a
kilometer in length ran from the north wall through the inner
city and into the outer city.7
The third urban pattern is the most common among capi-
tals of large Zhou states: multiple walls that are not concentric.
Adjacent walled enclosures positioned north and south, east
and west, or at the corners of each other are among them, and
occasionally there are more than two walls. The state of Zhao,
in Handan in southern Hebei, flourished from 403 to 222 BCE.
The 1.888-square-kilometer site has archaeological remains
from the period of Spring and Autumn. That area became
an outer city when the Zhao moved its capital to Handan in
386 and constructed adjacent east and west cities south of it. 2.1. Illustration of Wangcheng, “ruler’s city,” from Nie Chongyi, Sanlitu
In this case, then, there are three adjacent walls (figure 2.3a). (Illustrated “The three li (ritual) classics”), part 1, juan 4/26, orig. 962

In the palatial sector, the western enclosure is just under 1.4
meters on each side and contains the largest building plat-
form known from the later part of the Zhou dynasty. Almost
certainly the place identified in texts as Dragon Terrace, it
forms a roughly north-south line with two smaller building
platforms behind it. The eastern city to the south is 926 meters
east to west by 1.442 kilometers north to south. This wall is
20–40 meters wide as opposed to 20–30 meters for the western
wall. Here, too, three platforms form an axial line through the
city north to south. The older, northern city is 1.52 kilometers
2.2. Wall of Qufu, capital of state of Lu, Shandong, second half of first
millennium BCE
north to south and approximately 1.4 kilometers east to west.
Only one foundation platform remains inside, suggesting it
may have been the palatial area of the Spring and Autumn city.
Another platform is directly opposite outside the northern
city’s western wall, perhaps evidence that there was another
enclosure of the earlier city. Workshops have been excavated
outside the walls to the northwest.8 Handan is an example of

21

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 Chapter 2
2.3. Plans of three multiwalled cities of the Eastern Zhou period
a. Handan, capital of Zhao, Hebei; b. Xiadu, capital of Yan, Hebei; c. Linzi,
capital of Qi, Shandong
a city where additional walls and growth continued when new
rulers conquered existing cities.
Xiadu, literally lower capital, of the Yan state in Yi county,
Hebei, just south of Beijing, is an example of an Eastern Zhou
city with adjacent walled areas that are further divided by a
canal (see figure 2.3b). Positioned between rivers to the north
and south, the 30-square-kilometer area stretched about 8
kilometers east to west by between 4–6 kilometers north to
south. The more developed part of the Yan capital was on the
east with an enclosed sector to its north. Remaining wall por-
tions are about 40 meters wide. A narrow sector at the north
is further divided from the rest of the eastern sector. Platform
foundation remains suggest this northern area was the location
of the palace. The number coincides with four terraces (tai)
named in Shuijingzhu (Commentary on the Waterways Classic), a
treatise perhaps written in the third century and annotated in
the early sixth century by Li Daoyuan (d. 527), which describes
137 waterways in China and, in the process, other features of
the landscape such as cities. The central and largest terrace, 140
22
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 22
by 110 meters and 11 meters high, is probably the foundation of
Wuyang Terrace.9 Bronze, iron, bone, and pottery workshops
are among the ruins of the eastern sector of Yan Xiadu, as are
places where bronze currency was cast. Cemeteries are found
in both cities.10
The capital of the state of Qi in Linzi, Shandong, which
flourished for more than six hundred years from 859 to 221
BCE, is one of the oldest examples of a city with adjacent walls.
Here the palace-city was in the southwestern corner of a much
larger walled area (see figure 2.3c). The rammed-earth outer
wall was 14 kilometers in perimeter and contained a popula-
tion of 210,000 households. Two gates provided access on the
north and south, and there was a single gate on the eastern and
western sides. The seven main roads through the city emanated
primarily from city gates; they were as wide as 20 meters. The
palace-city in the south, 1.5 by 2.5 kilometers, was enclosed by a
wall that at points was 60 meters wide. It, too, had main roads
passing through wall gates. A platform of 14 meters in height
and 86 meters north to south known as Duke Huan Platform
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 Architecture of the First Emperor
was in the northeast. It was probably the main palace sector
through the city’s Zhou history. A drainage system ran beneath
both walled enclosures, and pottery, bronze, iron, and bone
workshops were found, as well as a mint. Two large cemeteries
also were excavated within the city. The cemetery of the later
rulers of Qi is about 10 kilometers outside the city walls.11
Xintian, capital of the state of Jin in Houma, southern
Shanxi province, flourished from 585 to 376 BCE. It is better
evidence than Handan of continued occupation and growth
on a preexisting city site. By the end of the twentieth century,
seven walled enclosures, four of which shared space, had been
uncovered in an area that was 4.7 square kilometers. Large,
rammed-earthen foundations amid smaller ones were found
in two of the enclosures, suggesting palatial halls. The capital
of the state of Zheng, which became the capital of the state
of Han in 375 BCE in Xinzheng, Henan province, was a city
of about 20 square kilometers with two adjacent walls; its
small palace area, only 500 by 320 meters in extent, was in the
western walled section. The eastern city was not significantly
larger than the western one, but it may have served as an outer
city. The Xinzheng capital had several bronze foundries and is
the source of important bronze hoards that included musical
instruments.12
The fourth type of Eastern Zhou city had a single wall with
a palace sector inside it. Ying, the capital of the state of Chu
just outside Ji’nan in Jiangling, Hubei province, today is an
example. It was founded in 689. Contained in walls that were
as thick as 40 meters at the base and tapered to 10–14 meters,
and 4.45 by 3.588 kilometers in perimeter, the north and south
city walls had sluice gates that have been theoretically recon-
structed as shown in figure 2.4. Eighty-four palatial founda-
tions and more than thirty cemeteries with more than eight
hundred mounded tombs have been identified.13
Hundreds of states vied for power in the Spring and Autumn
period.14 No name could more aptly describe the 250 years that
followed than Warring States. By the mid-third century BCE,
only seven survived. The above-mentioned Qi, Yan, Zhao, Han,
and Chu were among them. The others were Wei and Qin.
The capitals of each of these states and the many of the first
millennium BCE that did not endure until the third century
had markets. The “Kaogongji” passage about Wangcheng states
that a market was part of every ruler’s city. Several other texts
of the period reinforce the role of commerce in later Zhou
cities. Bamboo slips excavated in a tomb in Linyi, Shandong
23
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 23
2.4. Reconstruction of section of sluice gate, south wall of Ying, capital of
Chu state, Jiangling, Hubei, 689–278 BCE
province, in 1972 contain sections of a document known as
Shifa (Rules about markets). According to Shifa, markets were
administered by officials, specific products were sold in pre-
scribed locations, and misconduct in the marketplace was pun-
ished.15 The text Zuozhuan (Zuo commentary) informs us that
market officials were on duty in the pre–Warring States period
of Eastern Zhou. The third-century-BCE official Xunzi wrote
that in the earlier part of Eastern Zhou, market directors were
largely responsible for maintenance, cleaning, traffic flow,
security, and price control, and in later Eastern Zhou they
expanded to merchandise inspection, settlement of disputes,
loans, and tax collection for sales, property, and imported
goods.16 One also learns from texts that each state market
had its own name. Whether Eastern Zhou states functioned as
city-states according to the definition used for those of ancient
Greece is debated.17
Archaeological evidence informs us about other aspects of
commerce in and among Warring States cities. Seals that name
officials in charge of state-controlled minting of coins and
foundries for bronze weapons and vessels are almost invariably
found in the vicinity of palaces, suggesting that these indus-
tries were tightly controlled by the state ruler. Workshops for
goods such as farming tools and pottery usually were farther
from palaces, perhaps suggesting less government control of
manufacturing, sales, or distribution. More than thirty thou-
sand coins uncovered at Yan Xiadu suggest that currency was
an important commodity. An early-fourth-century massacre
in this city has led to the theory that the urban population
increased dramatically and posed a challenge to royal control
of the city’s goods and production, and that the mass murder
was an assertion of power by the ruler to regain control of his
state.18 Other archaeological evidence suggests that warfare
was not only inter- and intracity but between Chinese states
and nomads at China’s northern frontier. Gold objects made
almost certainly by northern nomadic populations have been
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 Architecture of the First Emperor
found in Warring States period tombs. Entwined animals are
prevalent among the gold, and interlace patterns and inlay,
all characteristic of the art of peoples including the Scythians
known as Animal Style, dominate Chinese bronze vessels of
the Warring States period.
Rulers’ Tombs
Our knowledge of these vessels comes from tombs, most of
them belonging to Eastern Zhou kings or princes. Royalty were
interred in lingyuan, royal funerary precincts, spacious grounds
that included architecture of the ruler, family members, often
those close to him in life such as officials, and sometimes
servants or slaves, as well as aboveground architecture for
sacrifices and additional land that kept the tomb area isolated
from a nearby city of the living. This practice would continue
through the Han dynasty. Nonnobles also had cemeteries, as did
lineages. The size and structure of the tomb, number of coffins,
numbers and kinds of bronze vessels, and presence of objects
such as instruments were prescribed in texts and determined
by rank. More than a dozen royal tombs or cemeteries of the
Warring States period have been excavated. Here we highlight
those with important architectural features or objects that
provide unique information about architecture.
Chu, the largest state during the Spring and Autumn and
Warring States periods, has yielded more than five thousand
tombs. The above-mentioned Chu capital city in Ji’nan, Hubei,
had sluice gates (see figure 2.4), and in Baoshan and Jingzhou,
both in Hubei, and elsewhere, Chu built royal tombs (figure
2.5). The single approach ramp, stepped sides, and coffin pit
at the center are simplified compared to tombs of the late
Shang rulers in Anyang (see figure 1.11). The tomb of Marquis
Yi of Zeng, a name on objects in his tomb but perhaps a
man whose name was different in historical records, in Sui
county of Hubei, who died in 433 BCE, was divided into four
compartments, each lined with wooden planks and each con-
nected to adjacent sections by tunnels.19 This pit tomb with
no approach ramp had space between rooms and between the
burial and ground level that was sealed by charcoal and other
materials. Although this tomb is best known for the set of
sixty-five bronze bells weighing about two-and-a-half tons, it
2.5. Two Chu tombs, Juliandun, Baoshan, vicinity of Ji’nan, Jingzhou, Hubei,
period of Chu state
25
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 25
2.6. Reconstruction of inner coffin, tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, Leigudun,
Sui county, Hubei, ca. 433 BCE
also reveals three important features of Eastern Zhou archi-
tecture. First, the contents and purpose of the compartments
are differentiated: the main chamber contained the marquis’s
and eight other coffins, the latter all female sacrificial burials,
as well as the coffin of a dog; a room with thirteen coffins
is on the opposite side of the main chamber; between them
and to the north were burial goods. Second are the plank
walls, which are used in other tombs of the period such as
one excavated in Xinyang, Henan.20 Third are windows. We
have seen doors that open outward in a bronze vessel of the
early Zhou period (see figure 1.15). Doors are painted on the
outer of two lacquered wooden coffins of the marquis, and
windows divided into four panes are painted on the inner
sarcophagus (figure 2.6). The window might be compared to
the representation of windows or other light sources in tombs
of ancient Egyptian royalty, symbolically providing a view to
the world outside.
One of the most important artifacts for the study of
Eastern Zhou architecture was excavated in a cemetery of the
Zhongshan kingdom in Pingshan county of Hebei province.
King Cuo (r. 327–313 BCE) and his wife and concubines were
buried beneath truncated pyramidal mounds, his being 100.5
by 90 meters at the base and 18 meters square at the top. A
funerary hall was on top of the mound. Again we see continu-
ation of a much earlier practice: a funerary temple was on top
of the tomb of Lady Hao at the last Shang capital in Anyang.
Also following precedents from Yin are approach ramps to
King Cuo’s subterranean chamber from the north and south,
with the primary burial in a pit at the center, similar to the
structure of the Chu tomb at Baoshan as well (see figures 1.11,
2.5). Horse and chariot pits, treasuries, sacrificial burials, and a
pit for a boat were all part of the universe created underground
for King Cuo. Here, too, one readily draws comparisons with
ancient Egyptian practices that included the burial of boats
that would have made passage through the dark, watery under-
world possible.
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 Chapter 2
2.7. Zhaoyutu (plan of the omen territory), 94 by 48 by 1 cm, ca. 313 BCE,
excavated in tomb of King Cuo of the Zhongshan kingdom, Pingshan, Hebei.
Hebei Provincial Museum
2.8. Tomb of Yun Chang, king of Yue state, Yinshan, Shaoxing, Zhejiang,
Hebei, ca. 500 BCE
2.9. Drawing of bronze pole showing balustrades, cantilever corner
brackets, and hipped-roof with bird and dragon ornaments at the top and
drawing of its four sides, excavated at Xiadu, capital of the Yan state, Hebei,
Warring States period
26
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 26
The object is a bronze plate of 94 by 48 centimeters and
about 1 centimeter in thickness. A plan of the burial precinct
is inlaid with gold. The representation of three-dimensional
space in two dimensions is extraordinary anywhere in the
world in the third century BCE, and the use of scale is more
amazing. Distinctions in line thickness suggest that different
kinds of lines had different meanings for builders. Breaks in
lines indicate gates. Inscribed notations are as extraordinary
as the plaque itself. Building sizes and distances between
buildings and walls are provided. They are given in chi, a
unit of measure similar in usage to the English word foot,
and whose specific length changes through Chinese history,
and in bu, paces, even more similar to foot. South is at the
top of the diagram, where it would be for most of the rest
of China’s premodern cartographic history. Archaeologists
have named the diagram zhaoyutu, image of the “omen” ter-
ritory, zhao, or omen, presumably a reference to the funerary
world (figure 2.7).21
Perhaps even more important than the scaled and labeled
plan is the forty-two-character directive on the plate that
there be two copies, one to be kept in the palace and this sec-
ond one to be buried with the ruler. The purpose was so that
future generations would know how to construct a tomb in
the manner of their ancestors, and by inference, the under-
standing that the patterns of antiquity were to be followed
or, more explicitly, that the intent of royal architecture was
to model itself after its past and to be continued in the same
manner in the future.
The tomb of Yun Chang, the king of Yue on Mount Yin,
Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, was part of a moat-surrounded
cemetery of approximately 85,000 square meters. It had an
underground chamber that was triangular in section. The
tomb, 46 by 14–19 meters at the base and 14 meters into the
surface of the mountain, was lined with wooden slabs and
sealed with charcoal in the manner of the tomb of Marquis Yi
of Zeng. The subterranean space, 34.8 meters long, 6.5 meters
wide, and 5.6 meters high, was divided into three rooms. Burial
was inside a 6.5-meter-long tree trunk that had been cut in half
(figure 2.8).22
As for other tombs of the Warring States period, tombs
of the state of Jin are in southern Shanxi and seem to divide
according to the lineage of the deceased; south-facing tombs of
the state of Wei in Hui county, Shanxi, have funerary temples
on top of mounds; mounded tombs believed to belong to Zhao
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 Architecture of the First Emperor
2.10. Sectional drawing and reconstruction of
multilevel, pillar-supported structure incised on
bronze vessel, excavated in Zhaogu village, Hui
county, Henan, Warring States period
royalty are in the vicinity of Handan; the royal cemetery of Qi
is in the vicinity of Linzi; and the royal cemetery of Yan is near
Xiadu. Seventeen log coffins, some carved into the shapes of
boats, excavated in a pit tomb of 30 by 21 meters at the base in
Chengdu, were part of a royal cemetery of the state of Shu.23
Excavated objects of the Warring States period may inform
us about architectural details of the period. A bronze pole
divided into three registers supports a one-bay-square roofed
structure (figure 2.9). Like bronze vessels of the Western Zhou
dynasty, it shows the use of balustrades (see figure 1.15). The
five-ridge roof has a dragon on each side ridge and winged
creatures at the ends of the main ridge. Similar creatures join
cantilevers to the undersides of the roof to help support it.
Animals on roof ridges and cantilevered bracketing will be
standard in Chinese construction through the nineteenth
century. A building engraved on a bronze mirror excavated in
27
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 27
Zhaogu village, Huixian, Henan, is even more informative. The
structure is supported on a high foundation, with two stories
above it. Theoretically reconstructed as it appears in figure
2.10, this depiction combined with excavations of architecture
and literary descriptions are the basis for reconstructions of
architecture through the end of the first millennium BCE.24
Architecture of China’s First Empire
Between 230 and 221 BCE, the remaining six warring states
fell to Prince Zheng (259–210 BCE) of the state of Qin, who
declared himself Shi Huangdi, Primordial August Thearch,
and founded the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE) in 221; he is often
referred to as the First Emperor. Although his own dynasty
endured a mere fifteen years, building principles observed in
Qin were much older and endured much longer. The rendering
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 Chapter 2
of cartographic space, for example, seen on the bronze plate
from the tomb of King Cuo of Zhongshan (see figure 2.7), is
evident on pine boards excavated in Tianshui, Gansu province,
and dated 239 BCE.25
From 677 to 383 BCE, the state of Qin was centered in
the above-mentioned region Zhouyuan, which included the
modern cities Qishan, Fufeng, and Fengxiang, the locations
of building complexes and perhaps ancestral temples in the
Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (see figures
1.12, 1.13). This part of Shaanxi also contained enormous ducal
tombs of the kind constructed across China in the middle of
the last millennium BCE. A 21-square-kilometer necropolis
with some thirteen tomb areas, each with one or two main
tombs, includes the seventh-century BCE tomb of Duke Mu
and the largest burial of the Spring and Autumn period, possi-
bly the tomb of Duke Jing (r. 576–537); it is 5,334 square meters
in area. Tombs believed to be royal are approached by long
ramps from two sides like those in Anyang and King Cuo’s
tomb in the Zhongshan necropolis. Many of the tombs were
enclosed by moats, some by double moats, and some by “dry
moats,” perimeters dug as if to contain water. There is no evi-
dence of mounds above the Qin state tombs.
In 383 the Qin state moved its capital farther north in
Shaanxi to Liyang in Lintong county, near the site that would
become the capital of the Qin dynasty. Roof tiles, indications
of streets, and wall pieces confirm its thirty-four-year exis-
tence.26 Cruciform-shaped graves in Lintong are believed to
belong to fourth-century BCE Qin dukes. They are different
from the Qin state tombs in western Shaanxi in an impor-
tant way: funerary temples were on top of the earlier tombs,
whereas the fourth-century burials were covered with mounds
and funerary temples were nearby.
Initially Prince Zheng resided in palaces that remained from
the Qin capital of the Warring States period. Following unifi-
cation of the states in 221 BCE, he built new, larger palaces on
new sites. The Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) tells us that
the First Emperor had three hundred palaces with another four
hundred outside the palace-city walls.27 What these numbers
refer to depends on how one defines palace, for as explained in
the introduction, the character gong, translated as palace, can
refer to one courtyard or more than twenty that are interre-
lated in a complex of palatial buildings. The outer boundaries
of Qin Shi Huangdi’s capital also are vague: different from the
dictum in “Kaogongji” that stipulates a ruler should build the
28
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 28
square outer wall of his city and then construct palaces, altars,
and markets inside it, the First Emperor constructed his pal-
aces before he walled his capital, and the short duration of his
dynasty is the likely reason the outer wall was never completed.
The city was approximately 7.2 kilometers east-to-west by 6.7
kilometers north-to-south, with its northern boundary along
the Wei River.
By the early twenty-first century, foundations of four build-
ing groups had been excavated. Evidence is strong that the
first of them, known as palace 1, had at its core a two-story
structure with seven rooms on the first floor and five upstairs,
and with a central pillar extending from the ground to the
upper-story ceiling.28 Palace 2 is northwest of palace 1, and
about the same size, but in a poorer state of preservation.
Palace 3, the largest so far, was also two stories and was con-
nected to palaces 1 and 2 by covered arcades. Its lower story
had eleven rooms. Murals done in mineral pigments remain
in palace 3. Subjects include acrobats, horses, animals, floral
motifs, geometric patterns, and architecture. The architectural
elements are especially interesting. Features such as tie-beams
are painted along the upper walls where they would be found
in an actual building. The paintings anticipate a broader-based
imitation of architectural elements in relief sculpture or paint
in later time that is known as fangmugou, imitation of the
timber frame. Carbon-14 testing on wood from palace 3 dates
it to the mid–Warring States period, suggesting that painting
and refurbishing probably occurred during the Qin, but older
building parts were reused.
In addition, excavators believe they have found some of the
palaces the emperor is reported to have built in imitation of
those of each of the final six states as he toppled them during
his unification of China. Pottery tiles with the names of several
of the states have been uncovered on either side of palace 3.
Qin Shi Huangdi’s greatest achievement in palatial architec-
ture was to be Epang Palace, immortalized in the Records of the
Grand Historian as a project for which the emperor conscripted
more than 700,000 laborers and which, when it was destroyed
by the armies of the man who would found the Han dynasty,
burned for several months.29 The remains of Epang Palace are
about 15 kilometers west of Xi’an in the vicinity of the Western
Zhou capital Hao.
The concept of a traveling palace (xinggong) also blossomed
under the First Emperor. The palatial residences in and around
the capital were a means of decoy for the ruler, information
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 Architecture of the First Emperor
2.11. Remains of Jieshi Palace,
Shibeidi, Suizhong, Liaoning, on
coast of Bohai Sea, Qin dynasty
about whose specific whereabouts at a given time could be
punishable by death. Qin Shi Huangdi also used traveling
palaces in the manner they would be used by emperors for the
rest of Chinese imperial history: he made inspection tours of
his empire to demonstrate and consolidate his power, inscrib-
ing rocks and building residences at sacred and strategic sites
en route.30 He no doubt traveled on plank roads that had been
built in the Warring States period. Parts of one of these roads
between Xianyang and Sichuan province in the West remain
today. Rocks and palace architecture survive at Jieshi on the
coast of the Bohai Sea in Liaoning, the xinggong most distant
from the capital. Announced by two rocks that rise from the
sea as sides of an entryway, the coastal palatial area has been
excavated as ten interrelated courtyards, most of which had
building remains (figure 2.11). Ceramic tiles uncovered at
Jieshi Palace confirm either that craftsmen from Xianyang
worked here or that their products were sent to the coast of
Liaoning province for installation.31
Objects uncovered at all sites associated with the First
Emperor confirm his vision of empire. Weights, money,
and inscriptions prove that he unified weights and meas-
ures and established a national currency and a national
script. The last made it possible for documents to be written
and read by anyone, regardless of dialect. Qin Shi Huangdi
also established a central government in his capital and
divided the empire into commanderies, further dividing
them into prefectures. He had canals dug in order to trans-
port goods. He attempted to define the borders and protect
his country by enclosing it in a Great Wall. Although the
wall never stretched continuously across the approximately
29
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 29
3,000-kilometer northern border, the First Emperor’s intent
was to join preexisting walls of former states into a single
protective wall. He deserves credit for the idea of a bounded
nation, separate from nations beyond its borders, and per-
haps for understanding the symbolic power of a wall for
China.
The First Emperor did not accomplish his goals by being a
benevolent ruler. He resettled 120,000 families from defeated
states to serve him in the capital, conscripted hundreds of
thousands in his building projects, and is said to have burned
books of which he did not approve. Assassination attempts
on his life occurred with regularity, but none was successful.
He died in his fiftieth year in 210 during one of his inspection
tours, not having realized nearly what he hoped to accom-
plish. His minister Li Si kept the death a secret as long as pos-
sible, returning the body to the capital in a covered carriage
filled with salted fish to disguise the smell of its more valuable
contents.32
No single tomb in China has aroused as much interest or has
been excavated or studied as intensely as the First Emperor’s.
For two thousand years, anyone who passed the truncated,
pyramidal mound in Lintong county knew that China’s First
Emperor lay beneath it. The contents that continue to come out
of the ground since the announcement of the 7,000 life-sized
terra-cotta warriors in 1976 are so staggering that one indeed
believes reports that 700,000 men labored there and that 16,000
men carried away 42,000 tons of earth supplied by 200 diggers
over a period of 300 days.
The mausoleum was begun in 246 when Prince Zheng
became King of Qin. Only the squarish mound, approximately
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 Chapter 2
350 meters on each side, is above ground. No architecture has
been found on it. Stairs led to the top. It is the central focus of a
double-walled funerary precinct, the outer wall 6.21 kilometers
in perimeter with a gate in each face and the inner wall 3.87
kilometers in perimeter with two north gates and one at each
of the other sides. It is not as extensive as some royal funerary
sectors of the past or future in China, no doubt because neither
the emperor nor his dynasty endured long enough to realize
his vision. Still, remains and literary descriptions indicate
extensive construction above ground (figure 2.12). The two
walls and the contents of pits suggest comparisons with the
double wall and underground spaces of the tomb of King Cuo
of Zhongshan (see figure 2.7). Beneath the mound the burial
chamber remains sealed.
Records of the Grand Historian tells us that the tomb builders
dug down to the third layer of underground springs and
poured in bronze to make the outer coffin. Replicas of
palaces, scenic towers, and the hundred officials, as well as
rare utensils and wonderful objects, were brought to fill
up the tomb. Craftsmen were ordered to set up crossbows
and arrows, rigged so they would immediately shoot down
anyone attempting to break in. Mercury was used to fashion
imitations of the hundred rivers, the Yellow River and
the Yangzi, and the seas, constructed in such a way that
they seemed to flow. Above were representations of all the
heavenly bodies; below, the features of the earth. “Man-fish”
30
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 30
2.12. Plan of tomb complex of First
Emperor, Qin dynasty, Lintong,
Shaanxi
oil was used for lamps, which were calculated to burn for a
long time without going out.33
This kind of replication of aspects of life in the microcosmic
world of the tomb would be standard funerary practice for
the rest of premodern Chinese history.
As has been the practice in China, and as occurred during
excavation of the First Emperor’s palaces, the underground
areas were numbered as they were opened. Pit 1, still not com-
pletely excavated, is 14,240 square meters and contains more
than seven thousand terra-cotta warriors and horses, twenty
wooden chariots, and about four thousand bronze weapons.
The L-shaped pit 2 is 6,000 square meters and has only infantry.
Pit 3, 520 square meters, includes the elite soldiers and horses.
Pit 4 was found empty. Other subterranean pits contain small
numbers of terra-cotta officials, weapons, tools, 150 sets of
stone armor, 50 stone helmets, a 212-kilogram bronze tripod,
and cranes and other bronze birds.
Qin Shi Huangdi’s own burial chamber has not been entered,
perhaps because of the mercury (or cinnabar) believed, based
on Sima Qian’s account, to have been used to preserve his
corpse; after more than two millennia of concealment the
atmosphere may be toxic. But perhaps it is because the aura
of the First Emperor’s architecture holds unique intrigue even
among the myriad blockbuster finds that continue to emerge
from China’s soil. Moreover, the parts of the tomb beyond the
burial chamber are far from completely uncovered. In 2002,
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 Architecture of the First Emperor

using remote sensing, archaeologists detected that the soil was city and its architecture was guided by writings of the first mil-
not uniform throughout the mound. Soil samples revealed that lennium BCE that declared the ruler’s mandate to reign from
the mound is not a single entity but rather two layers made the center of the world and an officialdom with subsidiary
of different materials, both of rammed earth, the inner finer political and social roles around him. This central position of
and of thinner layers than the outer. 3-D scanning determined the ruler was envisioned in the concept of Wangcheng, a plan
more precisely where the boundaries between inner and outer that was realized a few times in the first millennium BCE and
layers are. Also found under the mound in 2002 were pieces of would guide conceptions of the imperial city thereafter. Up
ceramic tile of the kind used in roofs.34 to the Qin dynasty, the most important centers of production
Excavation of the royal cemetery of Qi near the capital Linzi were also capitals, for the role of the capital and its architec-
in Shandong province in the twenty-first century also sheds ture was to serve its state or empire. Through the third century
light on the tomb of the First Emperor. Archaeologists found BCE, the greatest monumental architecture of China above
the burial chamber interfaced sub- and supraground levels. ground was also in cities, but already construction was emerg-
They called this tomb style qizhong, rising into the mound. ing in places visited by the emperor outside his capital such as
Similar burials were employed in Chu at Ma’anshan tomb 1 and on sacred peaks. Underground and outside, but near the ruler’s
at Pingliangtai tomb 16, suggesting the kind of layered con- city, tombs and ancestral temples signaled social relationships
struction beneath the mound also observed beneath the mound as clear as the location of a palace in its capital.
of King Cuo of Zhongshan. Roof tiles uncovered beneath the
mound in 2002 may be from an ancestral or sacrificial temple
on the mound, but it is also possible that roofed architecture
was inside the mound: the use of the mound to conceal passage
in and out of the tomb also is possible.
Construction underground will continue to change or
refine our understanding of Chinese architecture until the
final tomb in China is excavated. One writes based on infor-
mation gleaned from excavation in combination with tex-
tual sources about Chinese architecture of centuries BCE, but
always with the understanding that one new find may explain
or alter much that has been written to inform us of what we
do not yet know.

Architecture was crucial to Qin Shi Huangdi’s vision of em-

pire, but his fifteen-year reign was far too short to achieve it.
The most important period for this implementation would be
the next two hundred years, the period known as the Western
Han dynasty (206 BCE–9 CE). The purpose of a capital, role of
the palace, and designs of ritual architecture and tombs con-
structed in the first two Han centuries would then be carried
forward for the rest of Chinese imperial history.
Even though the First Emperor worshiped at sacred spots
and established palaces across the land, part of his vision was
that the capital was the supreme city. Precedents for this con-
cept emerged in the Eastern Zhou dynasty when each state had
a designated palace-city. The understanding of the role of the

31

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