26 10 月 Food Officials’ Buildings in Emperor Shi Huangdi Tomb
The Food Officials were the institutions that served the emperor’s meals. In the Zuo Zhuan, it is said that “the ghosts still demanded food”. The arrangement of Emperor Shi Huangdi tomb also took the issue of eating into consideration, and it was very well thought out. The site of the food officials was such an institution.
In 1982, the site of the Food Officials was discovered in the northwestern part of the tomb of Qin Shi Huang. This is a group of high platform buildings with rammed floors, smooth and flat, powder-white walls, neatly built with heavy eaves, and huge storage rooms, indicating that the place was carefully treated. As you can imagine, the houses here were very tall in those days, and the houses were surrounded by earth-built and tile-paved pavements, as well as seeping wells and wells. The well has a brick-paved four-sided platform, and the walls of the well are enclosed by a large well ring, so that water can be seen at a depth of 16 meters. There is no well ring on the seepage well, and the foot sockets around the well wall are vaguely visible when water is fought. The site has unearthed copper horseshoes, iron chain copper arrowheads, copper table lamps, bronze scales, and iron swords and so on. What building is this in the tomb of Qin Shi Huang?
When the archaeologists carefully cleaned out the lid of a pottery jar, they learned the name of this group of buildings. It turned out that the lid was clearly engraved with the words “Lishan Food Official” and “Lishan Food Official You”, indicating that this was the food official building of the tomb of Qin Shi Huang.
The so-called food officials, who were under the control of the central government of the Qin Dynasty, were the officials who served the Emperor’s diet. The chief of the food officials was a minor official in the centralized government of the Qin Dynasty, but it was an important role to serve the emperor’s food. Here, they still served the emperor as if he were alive, bringing food to him on time every day. Under the food official chef, there were left and right chancellors who assisted the food official chef in managing specific affairs. The tomb of Qin Shi Huang was called “Lishan” in the Qin Dynasty, and the Qin tomb garden was called “Lishan Garden”. Therefore, the food officials of Qin Shi Huang’s tomb were called “Lishan food officials”.
Excavations have shown that the site of the Food Officials’ buildings in Emperor Shi Huangdi tomb is a group of tall, grand buildings covering an area of about 2,000 square meters. The floor was covered with walls made of wood and covered with wooden planks, probably a building used for storing food. In the rest of the area, there are storage vessels such as pots, jars and urns. There are places where cooking utensils such as pots, pans, and jars are placed for cooking. There are many and complete cooking utensils, and there is also a type of pottery with a small round hole of 1 cm in diameter at the bottom and sides, which is supposed to be a retort for steaming food. In addition, there is a place for people to live.
Unfortunately, all the buildings in this group were burned by fire, and all the wood on the site turned into black charcoal. Some of the tiles were so swollen and deformed by the fire that they looked like hairy bread, light and weak, a very large piece, but no weight in the hand, which shows the magnitude of the fire at that time. The Historical Records have recorded that at the end of the Qin Dynasty; Xiang Yu went to Xianyang and set fire to the tomb of Qin Shi Huang. It seems that the ruins of the food officials did not escape that sacking either.