Chapter 8 Chapter II Mausoleum Architecture

According to the excavations of archaeologists, as far back as the 21st century BC to the 11th century BC, that is, when my country entered the slave society, there were mausoleum buildings in the Xia and Shang dynasties.Anyang, Henan Province was once the capital of the Shang Dynasty, and what has been excavated now is not only a certain scale of palace buildings, but also a mausoleum area.There are more than a dozen large-scale tombs found in this area. The shape of these tombs is to dig square deep pits in the soil as tombs. The surroundings of the tombs are built with square logs. A well-dried tomb chamber made entirely of square wood, called the outer coffin (guoguo).There are also colorful paintings and carved patterns on the inner wall surface of the coffin chamber.There is a slope from the tomb to the ground. These tombs are all eight meters below the ground, some are as deep as 13 meters, and the tomb passage is 32 meters long.In addition to the remains of the slave owner, there are also some stone tools and pottery in the tomb, which are the supplies of the deceased.It is worth noting that hundreds of human remains were found in these tombs, which were obviously buried with the slave owners as human sacrifices, reflecting the barbaric burial system in the early slave society.

After Qin Shihuang unified China, he built an unprecedented scale of palace complexes, and at the same time built an unprecedented scale of the Mausoleum of the First Emperor.The imperial mausoleum was built at the northern foot of Lishan Mountain in today's Lintong County, Shaanxi Province. The shape of the mausoleum is a square cone, with a base of 350 meters from north to south, 345 meters from east to west, and a height of 43 meters.There are two walls around the mausoleum, which are long in the north and south and narrow in the east. The perimeter of the inner wall is 2,500 meters, and the perimeter of the outer wall is 6,000 meters.According to the literature records, in this mausoleum, "Three springs are pierced, and copper is lowered to form the outer coffin. The palace is full of rare and strange utensils for all officials. The craftsman is ordered to make a machine crossbow, and those who pass through it will be shot. With mercury For hundreds of rivers, rivers and seas, they are instilled with each other. Astronomy on the top and geography on the bottom. With mermaid ointment as a candle, those who are immortal can live for a long time" ("Historical Records·The Chronicle of Qin Shihuang").According to these descriptions, we can see that there are palaces and statues of civil and military officials in the underground palace, filled with pearls and gems; there are marks of the sun, moon and stars on the ceiling, and the shapes of rivers and seas are dug out of the ground, and the inside is filled with mercury; Fish paste was used as candles to illuminate the tomb; in order to prevent future generations from robbing, craftsmen specially made bows and arrows and placed them on the door.What the emperor thought was very thoughtful. Naturally, fish paste candles could not have been burning for 2,000 years, and the defensive crossbow bolts might have failed long ago. However, the tomb has never been excavated, so the records in the literature have not been verified. The true face of the imperial mausoleum has always been an unsolved mystery.However, in the past ten years or so, archaeologists have done a great thing. Around the Mausoleum of the First Emperor, architectural ruins, bronze chariots and horses, and large-scale terracotta warriors have been unearthed.The terracotta warriors and horses are a kind of funerary object, which has the same nature as the human bones found in the tomb sites of the Shang Dynasty in the Yin Ruins, but here, the clay terracotta warriors replaced the living people.Judging from such large-scale and exquisite bronze chariots, horses and terracotta warriors, we can speculate that the grandeur and luxury of the Mausoleum of the First Emperor is indeed unprecedented.

The Han Dynasty inherited the system of the Qin Dynasty and attached great importance to the construction of mausoleums.According to literature records, since Qin and Han Dynasties, mausoleums have not only built tall mausoleums on flat ground, but also set up stone unicorns, stone warding off evil spirits, stone elephants, stone horses and other statues in front of the mausoleum to represent the appearance enjoyed by the tomb owner during his lifetime and to guard the tomb. symbolic role.This form is beginning to be found in extant Han Dynasty tombs.The stone sculpture in front of the tomb of the famous general Huo Qubing during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty is the first example of this arrangement.In addition to beasts, there is another kind of stone carvings placed on the left and right of the front of the mausoleum, which become the entrance sign of the mausoleum.It is in the form of a rectangular stone tablet with a wooden roof, which is equivalent to a large stone sculpture.It can be seen that in the Qin and Han dynasties, the mausoleum buildings in ancient China had formed a group combining underground and aboveground buildings. The aboveground buildings began to have Shinto, and stone carvings and stone buildings were arranged beside the road.

After the Qin and Han Dynasties, the Three Kingdoms stood together, the country was divided, and the wars continued. After more than 300 years, it was not until the Sui and Tang Dynasties that they were unified again. The Chinese feudal society entered a period of prosperity.The feudal emperors inherited the ancestral system and paid more attention to the construction of mausoleums. The most important feature of the tombs of Tang Dynasty emperors is that they pursued the height of the mausoleum and the overall size and momentum of the mausoleum area.Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty was not satisfied with digging the ground and piled up soil for the mausoleum, but set a precedent of opening a mountain for the mausoleum. This is to choose a majestic mountain range as the mausoleum, and chisel the rocks to build the tomb.The most representative of this approach is Tang Qianling.Qianling Mausoleum is the joint burial tomb of Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu Zetian in Tang Dynasty, and it was chosen in the Liangshan area of ​​Qianxian County near Xi'an.The north peak of Liangshan is tall and majestic, with an altitude of nearly 1047 meters. There are two small peaks facing each other on the south side of it.The Qianling Mausoleum placed the underground palace on the mountainside of the North Peak, built a square wall around the North Peak, and opened a door in each of the four sides.In the south of the North Peak, there is a four-mile-long tomb passage. More than 100 stone figures and beasts are lined up on both sides of the tomb passage, reaching the entrance gate at the southern end.The two peaks in the south of Liangshan face each other on the east and west of the tomb passage. There is also a Que Pavilion on the top of the peak, which becomes the natural gate of Qianling Mausoleum.This huge mausoleum area formed by using the natural mountain environment and artificial planning and design is indeed more imposing than the mausoleums of the previous generation that were completely artificially created, and it can better reflect the feudal emperor's supremacy and will to rule the world.

After the Tang Dynasty entered the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the country was divided again.In 960 A.D., the Song Dynasty unified the Central Plains. Although it recovered economically, it confronted Liao, Jin, and Xia successively in the north. Politically and militarily, it has never been as peaceful and powerful as the heyday of the Tang Dynasty.This situation is reflected in the construction of the mausoleum, the most obvious is that the scale is smaller than that of the Tang Dynasty.The Song Dynasty stipulated that the emperor and empress were not allowed to build their own mausoleums during their lifetime, and could only choose a site to build a mausoleum after death, and they had to be buried within seven months.Due to such regulations and the limitation of economic conditions, the tombs of the Song Dynasty are not large in scale, and the forms of the tombs are mostly similar.The mausoleums of the nine emperors of the Northern Song Dynasty were all built in Gongxian County, Henan Province. Each mausoleum adopts the form of a mausoleum raised from the ground. Walls are built around the square mausoleum, with doors on all sides and towers at the four corners. There are stone people and stone animals.Although the scale of the Song Mausoleum is small, it can be seen that there is a tomb passage in the front, a sleeping hall in the back, a mausoleum platform in the back, and a tomb below the platform. This combination of underground and ground has become a fixed format of ancient Chinese royal tombs.

In the Song Dynasty, due to the development of agriculture and handicraft industry, the development of commerce led to the emergence of a group of wealthy businessmen and officials in the society, which led to a group of more exquisite medium-sized tombs. , Shanxi, Hebei and other places have been found.They are all made of bricks and stones, with decorations carved on the walls of the tomb. Most of them describe the life of the tomb owner before his death, and the images are vivid and natural.