Daming Palace: The Grand Tang Palace in Chang'an (634)

The Daming Palace was the great imperial palace of the Tang dynasty, begun in 634 on high ground just outside the walls of the capital Chang’an. From 663 until the dynasty’s collapse it was the emperors’ main residence and the place where they held court, received foreign envoys and governed one of the largest empires of the medieval world. Its excavated remains in modern Xi’an form one of China’s most important archaeological parks.

Background: a palace on the plateau

When the Tang took Chang’an in 617, they inherited the Sui palace city at the north centre of the walled capital. This Taiji Palace sat on low, damp ground. Its northern gate, the Xuanwu Gate, was the scene of the coup of 626 that brought Emperor Taizong to power.

In 634 Taizong began a new palace on the Longshou (“Dragon Head”) Plateau, outside the northeast corner of the city wall, as a cooler summer residence for his father, the retired Emperor Gaozu. It was first called the Yong’an Palace and renamed Daming Palace in 635. Gaozu died that year, before it was completed, and work slowed.

Expansion under Gaozong

Emperor Gaozong, who suffered from rheumatism and disliked the damp Taiji Palace, revived the project in 662 and renamed it the Penglai Palace. The main halls were completed in 663, and the court moved there that year. Apart from periods when emperors resided in Luoyang or elsewhere, it remained the centre of Tang government until the early tenth century. The palace was called Hanyuan Palace for a time from 670 and took back the name Daming in 705.

Layout and main buildings

The walled complex covered about 3.2 square kilometres and was laid out along a north–south axis. Its southern section held the formal halls of state, and its northern section the residential quarters and gardens.

• Danfeng Gate: the main southern entrance, with five gateways, opening onto a broad avenue.
• Hanyuan Hall: the main audience hall, raised on a high terrace with long ramps and flanked by two towers. Here emperors held New Year audiences, proclaimed reign changes and received foreign delegations.
• Xuanzheng Hall: the hall for regular court audiences, surrounded by government offices.
• Zichen Hall: an inner hall for smaller audiences with senior ministers.
• Linde Hall: a large complex in the western part of the palace used for banquets, performances and receptions of envoys.
• Taiye Pool: an artificial lake in the northern garden with an island called Penglai, named after the legendary island of the immortals.

The scale was intended to impress. Envoys from Japan, Korea, Central Asia and beyond approached the throne through a sequence of gates and courtyards before climbing to the Hanyuan Hall.

Destruction

The palace suffered when rebels and armies took Chang’an during the An Lushan Rebellion and again in the late ninth century, including the Huang Chao rebellion, whose forces entered the city in 881. In 896 troops of a rival warlord burned parts of the palace.

The final blow came in 904. The warlord Zhu Wen forced Emperor Zhaozong to move the court to Luoyang and ordered Chang’an’s palaces, offices and houses dismantled, with the timber floated down the Wei and Yellow rivers. Three years later Zhu Wen ended the Tang dynasty. Chang’an never again served as a national capital, and the palace site became farmland and, later, part of the city’s suburbs.

Archaeology and the heritage park

Systematic excavation began in 1957 under the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, now part of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Archaeologists traced the palace walls and gates and uncovered the foundations of the Hanyuan, Linde and other halls, as well as the outline of the Taiye Pool.

After the area was cleared of modern housing, the Daming Palace National Heritage Park opened in October 2010. Visitors see excavated and protected foundations, rebuilt earthen platforms, a scale model of the palace and a modern structure over the site of the Danfeng Gate that suggests the gate’s original size. In 2014 the site became part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing “Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang’an–Tianshan Corridor”.

Timeline

• 634: Emperor Taizong begins the Yong’an Palace for his father Gaozu.
• 635: The palace is renamed Daming; Gaozu dies.
• 662: Emperor Gaozong revives construction and renames it Penglai Palace.
• 663: The court moves to the new palace.
• 705: The name Daming Palace is restored.
• 881: Huang Chao’s rebel army enters Chang’an.
• 904: Zhu Wen moves the court to Luoyang and has Chang’an’s palaces dismantled.
• 1957: Systematic excavation begins.
• 2010: The Daming Palace National Heritage Park opens.

Why it matters

The Daming Palace was the stage on which the Tang empire presented itself to its subjects and to the world. Its plan influenced palace design elsewhere in East Asia, and its excavated ruins give a rare physical sense of the scale of the Tang court at its height.