Xianyang Imperial Capital Chronicle

Author: Wang Xueli
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1999-08-01
Features: A wealthy and heavily fortified Xianyang City, which has forever vanished from the horizon. Its glorious years have left only faint traces in historical documents. For a long time, what lingered in people's minds was merely a hazy admiration, though they tried to imagine the magnificent architecture of the Xianyang Palace, the Li Mountain Mausoleum, and other buildings connected to it from the vivid verses: "The two rivers flow gently into the palace walls. Every five steps there is a tower, every ten steps an pavilion. The corridors coil gracefully, the eaves project high like pecking birds. Each structure embraces its terrain, competing in intricate designs. A long bridge lies on the waves, as if no dragons have flown across the sky? A skywalk spans the void, as if no rain has dispersed the rainbow." Although "The Ode to the Xianyang Palace" is a great masterpiece, it cannot serve as reliable historical material for studying Xianyang. Because 1,031 years passed after the destruction of Xianyang and the Xianyang Palace, the Tang poet Du Mu could not have written it. Today—nearly forty years after archaeological investigations and excavations began in the ancient capital of Xianyang—within this archaeological project, I have participated in and researched most of the work.