2026-06-28
Archaeological discoveries in Shanxi province reveal new insights into Tang dynasty religious architecture.
In 2023, archaeologists from the Shaanxi Academy of Archaeology uncovered the foundations of a major Tang dynasty temple complex beneath Xi'an's modern suburban sprawl. The site, located in the Chang'an District approximately 4 kilometers southeast of the ancient Mingde Gate, revealed a layout of eleven bays across the main hall — a width that suggests the temple was among the largest ever built in the Tang capital. The foundation platform, measuring 68 meters wide and 28 meters deep, was constructed of rammed earth faced with brick, a technique that has preserved its dimensions almost perfectly for 1,300 years.
The discovery is significant because it confirms descriptions in the Tang Huiyao (Institutional History of the Tang) of a temple named Dazuosi, built in 677 CE by order of Emperor Gaozong. The documentary sources described a hall of "eleven bays, with a twin-eave hip roof and a two-story pagoda in the eastern cloister" — dimensions that match the excavated foundations exactly. For the first time, a Tang building known only from texts has been physically located and measured.
The dig exposed the complete ground plan of the main hall: a core of 44 column bases arranged in a grid of 4 rows by 11 bays, with the central 5 bays forming a wider, more widely spaced ritual space. The column bases themselves are carved granite drums, each 1.2 meters in diameter, with a central mortise hole 35 cm deep — dimensions that would have supported columns at least 12 meters tall, putting the original hall's eaves at roughly 15 meters above ground.
Fragments of painted plaster were found in the fill layers behind the platform, including a section of lotus-scroll pattern in mineral pigments — azurite blue, malachite green, and cinnabar red — that has been carbon-dated to 680-720 CE. The pigments are consistent with those found in the Mogao Caves murals of the same period, suggesting that the same workshops of Buddhist painters moved between cave temples and timber halls, carrying their color recipes across the empire.
The Dazuosi discovery puts the two surviving Tang timber halls — Foguang Temple's East Hall (857 CE) and Nanchan Temple's Main Hall (782 CE) — into sharper context. Both are now known to be representative of a middle tier of Tang temple architecture, not the imperial first rank. The Dazuosi main hall, at 11 bays, would have been half as wide again as Foguang's 7 bays, and its twin-eave hip roof would have matched the highest imperial grade.
This means that the Tang architectural tradition, as we understand it from the two surviving halls, is like reconstructing a symphony from two surviving bass notes. The Dazuosi excavation gives us the first physical evidence of the treble: the proportions, materials, and scale of the imperial first-rank buildings that defined the Tang golden age. The dig continues, and archaeologists expect to find the pagoda foundations in the 2027 season.
Every new foundation we uncover changes our understanding of Tang architecture. The two surviving halls are the exception, not the rule — the rule was a scale and sophistication we are only now beginning to measure.
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