Ancient Chinese magnificent buildings are known for their curved and ornate roofs. Researchers at the Ximing Temple in Xi’an have now investigated what the tiles on these roofs reveal about the craftsmanship and logistics in ancient China. It turned out that the craftsmen used two different methods of decorating and, in the course of the Tang period, brick production also became significantly more decentralized.
The city of Xi’an is now the capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. In ancient China, however, it was the capital of the entire empire several times under the name of Chang’an. During the Tang Dynasty from 618 to 907, the metropolis extended over 88 square kilometers and was one of the largest cities of the time with around one million inhabitants. Today Xi’an is best known for the tomb of Emperor Qin Shihuangdi, the first emperor of China, who had his mausoleum equipped with the famous terracotta army.
Subtle differences in the lotus flower pattern
But even in the city itself, many old buildings today testify to the former importance of Xi’an, including several pagodas, towers and temples. Typical of these buildings are the curved roofs decorated with ornate tiles and end pieces. Researchers working with Meng Lyu from Kanazawa University in Japan have now taken a closer look at these roof tiles. They wanted to know what the end pieces of the rows of bricks at the Ximing Temple in Xi’an, which are mostly decorated with lotus flower patterns, reveal about their manufacture and manufacturer. To do this, they subjected 449 end pieces to a comparative study.
The round end pieces served as clasps and decorations for the rows of arched bricks that ended at the edge of the roof. In the temple from the Tang period, these end pieces usually had a lotus flower in relief. “We were particularly interested in variations in the patterns of the brick ends,” explains Lyu. “Some differences come from the conscious control of the artists who made these bricks, such as the choice of whether to make simple or complex lotus patterns. Other variations were beyond their control, such as the wear and tear on the printing forms used to make the bricks. “
Two cultural traditions and the advent of private artisans
The comparative analyzes revealed that the brickmakers apparently followed two different cultural traditions and manufacturing methods when decorating the end pieces: “One produced brick ends with compound petals and rounded indentations, while the other tradition decorated the end pieces with simpler petal patterns and left more incised indentations”, reports Lyu. He and his colleagues suspect that these different techniques of ornamentation could be traced back to the origins of the brickmakers in the area of ​​the Northern Wei Dynasty: Since this area was divided into two regions before the beginning of the Tang period, the different patterns could reflect the cultural traditions reflect these two areas.
But even during the Tang period, there were apparently changes in brick production, as the investigations showed. “We discovered that the amount of minor variation in end pieces from the later period increases significantly,” says co-author Guoqiang Gong of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. “We believe that this indicates that there was a shift in production methods from the early to the late Tang period – away from the centralized production of imperial building materials and towards a production in which small, private artisans played an important role.” The example of the end pieces demonstrates what valuable insights the roof tiles of the old imperial temples and magnificent buildings can give into the culture and history of ancient China.
Source: Kanazawa University; Professional article: Archaeological Research in Asia, doi: 10.1016 / j.ara.2020.100248