No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
An Ancient Chinese Capital1. Earthworks at Old Ch'ang-an
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2015
Extract
Not least in interest among subjects of archaeological study is that which has to do with the types of fortification constructed by organized communities in the past. These, once the habit of town-dwelling had become fixed, seem to have tended to fall into two major classes : the arx, acropolis, or citadel, one of whose functions it was to provide a temporary refuge in emergency; and the enceinte or city-wall proper, designed to afford permanent protection to the group living within it. Sometimes the two forms occur in combination; more often, singly.
The first type we frequently, though by no means always, find situated on a height ; the acropolis of Athens and the Capitoline Hill at Rome are familiar examples. The second class, on the other hand, seems to have developed more especially in those alluvial plains on which sprang up the great river-valley civilizations of the Ancient World. To it belong the tremendous earthworks constructed slightly over two thousand years ago about the city of Ch‘ang-an (meaning ‘Long Peace’ ; possibly Ptolemy’s ‘Sera Metropolis’), the capital of the then recently established Chinese empire.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1938
Footnotes
1
The following account contains material included in a report, now in course of preparation, dealing with the investigations conducted in China during the period 1923–1934 by the Freer Gallary of Art, Washington, D.C.
References
2. On this identification see, e.g., Grousset, René:Histoire de l‘Extréme–Orient(Paris,1929),1,242and note 5.Google Scholar
3 This name, or rather title, means literally ‘First Emperor of the Ch'in (Dynasty)’;he is mentioned, in another connexion, in ANTIQUITY, March1937,11, p.27.Google Scholar
4 From this word almost certainly came our name ‘China’. Those who deny this (usually on the ground that the name ‘China’ ante dates the founding of the Ch’in empire) forget that the state of Ch’in was established several centuries earlier, and long before Shih Huang–ti’s time had already annexed the eastern termini of both the great land–routes linking the Far East with the Occident, the one by way of Central Asia, the other through Farther India.
5 The Han Dynasty, it should be remarked, was the first Chinese ruling house to spring from the ranks of the common people. The founders of all the earlier ones had belonged to the turbulent, hard–drinking, chariot–fighting feudal nobility, the possessors of the Chinese Bronze Age civilization (in regard to the latter point cf. ANTIQUITY, December 1933,7, p. 404).Google Scholar
6 Recent excavations at the two opposite ends of the Asiatic continent have shown that the use of terre pisé construction dates back, in China at least to the second millennium B.C. and in the Near East considerably earlier still.
7 Such accumulations of earth, on account of their high ammonia content, are much used by the northern Chinese peasantry as fertiliser. Analogous practices are found elsewhere, as for example in the terremare of north Italy and the terpen of west Friesland.
8 The same character, pronounced ch’éng, also means ‘city;’ for according to the traditional Chinese way of thinking, the wall is what makes the city.
9 Shields formed part of the equipment of the Chinese warriors of the time, as shown, for example, on the famous Han ‘reliefs’ (in reality incised drawings on stone slabs) from the province of Shantung and by numerous passages in the surviving historical records.
10 These upward–curving roof corners were a post–Han development in Chinese architecture. Until long after the beginning of the Christian era, Chinese roofs had straight lines.
11 Mo–tzü, chap, XIV, par. 62.
12 Formerly miscalled ‘Polysperchon’.
13 Also called Sun Wu; fi. 4th century B.C. On his writings see Giles, Lionel:Sun Tzü on the Art of War,London,1910(trans, from the Chinese, with notes).Google Scholar
14 Roofing–tiles of baked clay seem to have come into use in China during the Eastern Chou period (770–255 B.c.). By Han times, from around 200 B.c. onward, those used to cover important buildings had begun to be painted in bright hues. It was not until the epoch of the Six Dynasties, well after the commencement of our era, that the practice arose of covering them with coloured glazes.