Chapter 13 Section 4 Advances in Construction Technology

Documents record that King Wen of Zhou established his capital at Yufeng, on the west bank of the Feng River in present-day Chang'an, Shaanxi; King Wu established his capital at Hao, on the east bank of the Feng River in present-day Chang'an.Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, archaeologists have carried out a large number of archaeological surveys and excavations on both sides of the Feng River. It is initially determined that the central area of ​​Fengyi is in the north of the middle reaches of the Feng River, from Hakkasho Village and Zhangjiapo in the north, to Xiwang Village and Feng Village in the south. It reaches Fenghe River in the east and Lingzhao River in the west, with a total area of ​​about six square kilometers.Some palace building foundations, copper casting, pottery making, bone making and other handicraft workshop sites and noble cemeteries were found here.For example, from 1983 to 1985, more than a dozen rammed-earth building foundations were discovered in Mawang Village and Hakka Village in Fengxi. Among them, the No. 4 building foundation is T-shaped in plane, 61.5 meters long from east to west, and wide from north to south: the widest point in the west It is 35.5 meters long, 27.3 meters wide in the east, and has a total area of ​​1826.96 square meters. It is the largest Western Zhou building foundation that has been discovered so far.Regarding Haojing, it has been found that its central area is in Luoshui Village, Shangquanbei Village, Pudu Village, Huayuan Village and Doumen Town on the east bank of the Fenghe River. Kunming Pool was destroyed, and the existing area is about four square kilometers.Some large building foundations were also found in Luoshui Village.

The Zhou people originated in Zhouyuan, south of Qishan Mountain at the junction of Fufeng and Qishan counties in today's Shaanxi Province. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, some important architectural sites of ancestral temples and palaces have been discovered in Zhouyuan area. In 1976, a group of palace or ancestral temple building foundations from the Western Zhou Dynasty were discovered in Fengchu Village, Qishan Mountain. They face south and front and back, all of which are located on high rammed earth foundations. The area is about 1500 square meters.In the middle of the south is the gate, the gate is three meters wide, with houses (East and West Schools) on the east and west sides, and a shadow wall (screen) on the south side of the gate.After entering the gate, there is a large courtyard (atrium), 18.5 meters long from east to west and 12 meters wide from north to south.To the north of the courtyard is a hall (hall), which is the main building of this group of buildings. It is six rooms wide, 17.2 meters long, three rooms deep, and 6.1 meters wide.Behind the main building is a small courtyard, which is divided into two small courtyards of eight square meters each in the east and west by a corridor about three meters wide in the middle.To the north of the back courtyard is the last building (room), five rooms wide, 23 meters long from east to west, and 3.1 meters deep from north to south.There are a row of wing rooms on the east and west sides of the gate, the main building and the last building, each with eight rooms, 2.6 meters in depth and 4.2 to 6.2 meters in width.In this way, a slightly back-shaped closed building is formed by the gate, the east and west wing rooms and the back room, enclosing the main hall in the center, and the layout is regular and rigorous.It is consistent with the system of "front hall and back room" or "front court and back bedroom" recorded in ancient documents such as "Yi Li".The walls of the houses are made of rammed earth, generally 0.58 to 0.60 meters thick, and the ground and walls are covered with "sanhe soil" made of fine sand, white ash and clay, which is flat and hard.

The invention and use of tiles is a great progress in building materials and technology. According to archaeological findings, the roofs of houses before the Western Zhou Dynasty were all covered with thatch, that is, the "Maoci Terrace" recorded in the literature Junlan").Tiles began to appear in the early Western Zhou Dynasty, and the number was small at first, probably only used to cover the roof ridge.By the late Western Zhou Dynasty, tiles had appeared and been used in large numbers. In 1976, a large number of plate tiles and tube tiles were found on the foundation site of the palace building in the late Western Zhou Dynasty in Zhaochen Village, Fufeng, and some tube tiles also had semicircular tiles.On the back or front of the tile, there are tile nails or tile rings used to fix the position.The large tiles of the late Western Zhou Dynasty found in Luoshui Village on the east bank of the Fenghe River in Chang'an are about 45 cm long and 30 cm wide.These all show that in the late Western Zhou Dynasty, most of the roofs were covered with tiles, which could better solve the problem of roof rain protection.The use of tiles on the roof greatly increased the weight of the roof, which prompted major changes in the beam structure and column foundations of ancient Chinese buildings. Large and reinforced is proof.