The Archaeology of the Qin Capital City of Yong

Abstract

The Qin capital city ofYong in Fengxiang, Shaanxi, was one of the longest-lived of Qin’s “nine capitals and eight relocations.” The site comprises the urban settlement, Qin rulers’ mausoleums, city residents’ cemeteries, and palaces and sacrificial altars in the outskirts. During the period in which Yong was the Qin capital, the Qin state developed socially and politically from an early kin-organized polity to a powerful kingdom organized on geographic parameters on par with the six eastern Warring States. Little was known about the history ofYong prior to the 1930s. However, in the almost one hundred years since, archaeologists have illuminated much about the city’s layout, characteristics, structure, and periodization by operating under the principle of using textual records as the foundation, archaeology as empirical evidence, and science and technology as support, thereby providing information for comprehensive research on Qin culture more broadly.