Archaeological Research On Ritual Buildings Of Pre-Qin Dynasty

The ritual buildings in the Pre-Qin dynasty were the principal place for worship of people. And they were also a place to communicate and exchange with the ancestors. They not only represented the superlative degree of the architecture technology in that time whose programming thought bring deep influence to the aftertime but also were the greatest stages of the political life. They are important practicality materials for us to rebound and research the ancient society.Since the appearance of archaeology in China, ritual buildings have been an important research object. In the archaeology excavation of resent years, the ritual buildings emerged in endlessly, numerously and distributed widely which provide rich and useful stuffs to the research of the Pre-Qin dynasty. In the historical literatures of China, there are lots records of the ancient architectures and protocol. Beside, the materials in ethnology provide support for our research of ancient sacrifice and thought. Both two lays ground work to the lucubration of the ritual buildings of Pre-Qin period. At present, the research about the ritual buildings in our county is emphasis on a type or the form and function of a specific time which is warmest in the time of Han to Tang and less to that of the Pre-Qin period. Beside, people also paid less attention to the heritage relationship of one stage to anther. Even the definition of the concept, the measure of characters and the including of the types to the Pre-Qin period are still inconformity. Thus we have possessed the qualification to the systematic research of ritual buildings of Pre-Qin period and this task also needs our research earnestly.The main body of this article is divided into nine sections.The first section is Introduction which includes the discrimination of the concept of ritual buildings, the investigated object, method and purpose of the paper. Beside the discovery and research survey of the ritual buildings in Pre-Qin period and other production of the architecture concerning about protocol are discussed either. The defining of the concept of ritual buildings are the base and jumping-off point and the top outline of the paper. Thus this part analyzes the different concepts of ritual buildings in the area of architecture history and archaeology at first. Then the author advances the definition of ritual buildings in Pre-Qin period on the base of the part above. The definition is that the architectures are built by the country, used by the rulers, represented the identity and position of the rulers to explicit music and courtesy and to announce the education. Narrowly speaking, the types of the architectures include palace temples, altar and sacrificing holes. Generally speaking, they also include the city sites and graves. This paper discourses upon the narrow part. To review the provenance and development of the ritual buildings in an integrate way; the research objects of this paper includes the site of the ancient religion prehistorically which were the cermonious buildings that has been 5000-4000 years from now on or in Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties. Next, the research purpose and methods of this paper are introduced. In the following, the author sets off the excavating and research achievement into three stages and shortly comments the field work and research achievement of every stage. Although the paper do not pay the main attention on the city sites and graves, the researches of them are also belongs to the generalized part of the research and still increases the deeper research of the narrow ritual buildings in the part of palaces and temples. For those reasons, this part are summarized either.Chapter one talks about the primitive religion site that is the predecessor of the ritual buildings which could either be called as before-ritual buildings. Because the different identifying of the academe, this article first interprets the defining process of the primitive religion site, and divided the site of nature worship and ancestor worship through the production of the teaching. According to the different of the objects of the worship and sacrifice, the nature worship can be sub-divided into sites of land worship, animal worship and gods worship. The author sorts out and discusses every kind of original religion worships.Chapter two is the cermonious buildings and the primitive religion site in about 5000-4000 before. Cermonious buildings were both the most advanced development mode of primitive religion sites and the seed of the ritual buildings of posterity. That is the reason they were called pre-ritual buildings. They include the large-scaled building sites in the pre-historical cites and different altars in many places. Beside, the Dongshanzui stone buildings of Hongshan culture and goddess temple site in Niuheliang have their special culture property. So the paper pays special attention on them. The same time with ritual buildings in 5000-4000 years before, the middle and small original religion sites went on developing and not only larger in number when compare with the stage before but also appeared new characters fitting the development of that stage.Chapter three is the rite-administration buildings of Xia, Shang and Western Zhou periods which represent the early development of ritual buildings and include the large-scaled palace and temple buildings and high standard sacrifice sites. This chapter sorts out the kingdoms sites and discusses the habitude of every rite-administration building.Chapter four discusses the ritual buildings of the spring and autumn period. From this stage, the ritual buildings appeared the trace of linked with Han and Tang periods. Because the historical sites in East-Zhou period was less discovered by scientific ways, most of the ritual buildings could only presumed by evidence thus this chapter chooses the East-Zhou period with clear intensions to discuss.Chapter five is the composition and programming thought of Pre-Qin period. From the trace of archaeology discover and historical literature of this period, the author abstracts six designs of the ritual buildings in Pre-Qin period. They are the universal idea of Harmony between the Heaven and Human, the idea of superiority and inferiority on respect to the center and left, the building pattern of symmetry, the idea of nearing the water and closing to the hill, the idea of good for the king and benefit to the people, the idea of combining practicality and aesthetic, the scientific pursuing to the just and square and the idea of pattern of court rront and living room behind, ancestral temple left and palace right. And then query about the traditional idea of Ancestral Temple Left and Land Sacrifice Right. Those six thought came from the practice of people, were continuously perfect and developed by them and directed them on the contrary.Chapter six is the full range analyzing of the ritual buildings in Pre-Qin period. According to the form of the buildings, they can be divided into house-like kind and house-unlike kind. The former include the big houses with protocol functions as palaces and temples. The latter include the altars and sacrifice holes. Comparing of the two shows the former was the main point of human architecture technology. Because the latter is comparably simple and mostly belongs to the former, the paper discusses the technology mainly depend on the former which includes the ram technology, the technology of the wall, the development of the hole and base of the poles, the dispose of the floor and wall, the framework of the roof and drain of the buildings. Chapter seven analyzes the social background reflected by the ritual buildings of Pre-Qin period. The social evolution model reflected by the pre-historical original religion sites and protocol buildings can be divided into original religion dominated type and kingship and army-ship dominated type. When the historical time came, those buildings became to be the main fighting place of kingship, clan-ship and god-ship. In Xia and Shang periods, the station of temple building is higher than that of the palace which reflects the realistic of the kingship being controlled by the clanship and god-ship. From the later Shang period, the station of kingship was enhanced gradually. To the Zhou especially the East-Zhou period, the kingship succeeded the other two which was reflected in the part of ritual buildings that is the higher of the station of palace than that of the temple.In the conclusion, the author sums up the content before and figure out the deficiency of the paper as well as the research design in the future.