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The
Central Capital City (Zhongdu)
of the Yuan Dynasty
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????With
a surveyed area of 300,000 square meters in Hebei Province, the
ancient capital city was constructed with one inside city enclosed
by an intermediate city and another outer city. The excavation site
covers an area of 1430 square meters. During the excavation, a platform
of the central palace of the inside city, a superb palace gateway
and a corner terrace structure of a special shape were found, and
a great amount of valuable building components and materials including
stone, ceramics, iron, bronze and wood were collected.
????The foundation of the Yuan Dynasty city, two to three meters above
the ground, and the specially styled rammed corner terraces in the
inside city have provided evidence to identify the city structure
and disposition, and the building layout. The survey shows that
there were four gates in the inside city, three gates in the intermediate
city, a waterway, and in the best preserved location of the outer
city, remains of the ruined rammed terraces of a city wall about
one meter high can be seen. In the three cities, ruins of buildings
were also found, including the foundations of a group of I-patterned
principal palace constructions with distinct central axial alignment
and symmetric distribution of buildings. The unearthed high quality
building materials and components include corner designs of exquisitely
carved white marble heads (without horns) of dragons, glazed beasts
and a relief dragon design on the tile-ends.
????The discovery provides new and substantial evidence for the study
of the capital of the Yuan Dynasty.
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