full title, "'The greatest palace that ever was': Chinese archaeologists find evidence of the fabled imperial home of Kublai Khan's Yuan dynasty".
The Yuan foundation contains rubble dating to earlier dynasties. Photo: Simon Song
Posted on 06/12/2016 5:24:35 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
After the dynasty collapsed, there were no clues as to where it was and it lived on only in legend through writings such as those of 13th century Venetian merchant Marco Polo.
If Polo is to be believed, the walls of "the greatest palace that ever was" were covered with gold and silver and the main hall was so large that it could easily seat 6,000 people for dinner.
"The palace was made of cane supported by 200 silk cords, which could be taken to pieces and transported easily when the emperor moved," he wrote in his travel journal.
It was a vision of grandeur but the palace disappeared, seemingly without trace.
The Yuan dynasty lasted for a less than a century, spanning the years from 1279 to 1368, and it is widely believed that the capital of the empire was Beijing...
Now experts at the Palace Museum in Beijing believe that they have some answers, clues they stumbled upon during upgrades to the heritage site's underground power and fire-extinguishing systems...
The foundations for the sprawling Forbidden City were laid in 1406 and construction continued for another 14 years. It was the imperial palace for the Ming rulers and then the Qing dynasty until 1912.
The complex has been built up, layer by layer, but researchers sifting through the sands of archaeological time said last month that they had found evidence that at least part of the Yuan palace was beneath the site.
The researchers from the museum's Institute of Archaeology said the proof was a 3 metre thick rammed earth and rubble foundation buried beneath the layers of Ming and Qing dynasty construction.
(Excerpt) Read more at scmp.com ...
The Yuan foundation contains rubble dating to earlier dynasties. Photo: Simon Song
I wonder if by “cane” he actually meant bamboo.
I know we used to fish using cane poles which were bamboo.
I thought it was a stately pleasure dome!
They should look by the banks of the Alph.
Probably.
Don’t see any bottled milk of paradise either.
Kublai di, Kublai Khan... YUAN fa lalalalala life goes on
That’s what Coleridge gets for answering the danged door.
No stately pleasuredome for you!
Or a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And ’mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw;
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise. The Khan would occupy his palace by day, but retreat to sleep under the stars in his Mongol 'ger' by night ("you can take the Mongol off the Steppes but ...").
Thanks. Best thing I’ve read all day.
These days people are assumed to be loads. Back in the day the myths we consider fables were based on truth. Imagine that! TRUTH !!!!!!
Is Chaka Khan related to him?
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