07 11 月 The Ruins of the Rest Hall of Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum
The rest hall was built beside the bedchamber hall as a side hall for the emperor’s soul to rest and relax. In the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, “The Changing of the Clothes”, it is written that “The changing of clothes is not the right place. In the palace there are bedchambers. The bedchamber is the main hall on the tomb; the resting hall beside the bedchamber, that is, for dressing.” In March 1977, the Lintong County Museum discovered a building site consisting of four buildings while working with farmers to level the land 150 meters north of the tomb of the First Emperor of Qin.
Experts have determined that this group of buildings would have been the ruins of the resting hall of Qin Shi Huang mausoleum. The four buildings are self-contained and arranged in a single east-west line, numbered west to east from one to four.
The base of Building No. 1 is badly damaged, with only partial remnants of rammed earth remaining, which have not been cleaned.
The base of the second building is relatively well preserved. The building is divided into two parts, the main part and the doorway. The main part has an area of 64.6 square meters, with a rammed, hard and smooth interior floor. The southern half of the main room has a concave stone paved floor and the northern half has a stone paved canal leading to the outside. On the west side of the main room is an east-west corridor-style doorway, with remnants of walls and pillars made of bluestone slabs, and the steps are made of bluestone strips.
Building Site 3 shares a 1.5 meter wide rammed earth wall with Building Site 2. The interior was found to have a square or rectangular slate floor.
The fourth building site was badly damaged, with only part of the rammed earth floor remaining, and a road paved with flakes and cobbles was found near the east and west walls of the house. A large number of rubble and cobbles for paving and walling were excavated from the four building sites, as well as tiles, slate tiles, barrel tiles, iron bolt plates, ceramic well rings, ceramic stove doors, residual bronze ware, and iron tools such as spades, chisels and shovels. Some of the bluestone plates also have line engravings on them, including a large tile with a Kui pattern measuring 61cm in diameter. From the architectural layout and structure of this group of halls and the excavated building materials, one can imagine how magnificent and luxurious the halls were back then.
