Implementing the recommendations of UNESCO, the direction of the People’s Committee of Hanoi and Decision No. 2406 / QD-BVHTTDL dated July 10, 2019 of the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism on archaeological excavations, the Center Preservation of Thang Long Heritage – Hanoi coordinates with the Archeology Institute to conduct an excavation for the northeastern area of Kinh Thien Palace with a total area of nearly 990m2. After nearly a year of excavation, exploration and preliminary revision, the Thang Long Heritage Conservation Center – Hanoi and the Archeology Institute have completed the “Preliminary report on the results of exploration of the main power area. Kinh Thien in 2019 ”.

356/5000 The results of the excavation in 2019 have many important new discoveries, contributing to a clearer, deeper and more comprehensive demonstration of the relics of the Le dynasty (Le So, Mac, Le Trung Hung), with more documents. to confirm that the central area of the HTTL has a history of continuous existence, lasting more than 1,300 years without interruption, from the Dai La, Dinh – Tien Le dynasties to the Ly, Tran and Le dynasties.

Discovering many relics and relics from pre-Thang Long to Ly, Tran, Le So, Le Trung Hung, Nguyen dynasties.

Pre-Thang Long period

Around the 8-9 century, in this area there are architectural traces of Dai La period (pre-Thang Long) that clearly prove that the sewer is built of quite elaborate brick running in the North-South direction. This cultural class is formed directly on the native soil. Thus, before the 8-9 century, there were no relics here.

Traces of the Dai La dynasty

Relics of this period include bricks and tiles of the periods TK3-4 to 5-6, 7-9 and Dinh Tien Le. The number of artifacts is very small, TK 3-6 is a number of cover bricks printed with oval pattern, TK7-9 has gray yin and yang tiles, lotus tile heads and colored glazed ceramic bowls (Tang dynasty). The Dinh Tien Le Dynasty was a number of red tile heads with lotus petals.

Brick to build relic of brick sewer in Dai La period

Ly Dynasty

In the Ly dynasty in 2017 and 2018, the columnar foundations were reinforced with gravel. However, the digging hole in 2019 only sees a little pure yellow brown clay background with no artifacts. It can be seen that the golden clay layer similar to that in other areas overlaps directly with the pre-Thang Long cultural layer. However, due to the strong destruction of the later stages, the Ly dynasty relics here were destroyed.

The foot of the rock has round holes decorated with lotus flowers in the Ly dynasty

The Ly artifacts in this location are also very few. has feet of sandstone, large-sized dragon leaf fragments, and large terracotta crest pieces. some tile on the background of lotus flowers, chrysanthemums.

A large crest of a large dragon head statue is made of terracotta of the Ly Dynasty

Tran Dynasty

In the Tran dynasty, this area revealed a naturally formed creek flowing in the East-West direction, this vestige cut most of the Ly and pre-Thang Long lands where the creek ran through. In the south of this creek, there are architectural traces of underground culverts. This underground sewer flows in the North-South direction and tends to drain water down this creek. Traces of the Tran’s foundation are quite thick. There are quite a few traces of Tran architecture, but only one architectural vestige can be recognized with round water pipes, the rest are too small to recognize the scale.

Traces of water road in Tran dynasty

The quantity of artifacts in the Tran dynasty is quite large: Brick with Vinh Ninh Truong lettering, square bricks, lotus tiles, leaf-nosed tiles, ceramic glazes of many kinds of Vietnam, a few Chinese.

Square tiles decorated with lemon flowers in Tran dynasty

Le So Dynasty

By the time of Le So, this creek was completely filled, and the entire ground of this area was leveled to build the architecture of the foundation wall, columnar foundation. Traces of ground leveling the foundation of the Le So period appeared on a large scale, covering the entire excavation pit area.

Traces of columnar foundation in the Le So period

Dynasties and Macs. There are many pieces of dragon tile with yellow enamel and green glaze. Brick (with words), the rock legs typical of the Le So period. The number of artifacts in this period is quite large, especially the blue-flower ceramic line of the Le – Mac dynasty occupies a large number (blue-flower wares painted with dragons and lotus flowers).

Decorative brick brick in the Le So period

Le Trung Hung Dynasty

In the Le Trung Hung period, there was a foundation layer with an area similar to that of the Le So period. At the same time, there was a lot of construction density, there was an architectural system with very large pillar foundations and a fairly regular garden system. At the end of the Le Trung Hung period, the garden was abandoned to make way for the pond / lake system which was elaborately built with two brick walls (5m wide pond / lake bed), winding lines, quite fussy.

Overall layout of garden architecture in Le Trung Hung period

The number of pieces of artifacts in Le Trung Hung’s time is quite large: Brick, tile, hollow brick, decorated with chrysanthemum, and ceramic glazes.

Decorative extracting tile head of Le Trung Hung dynasty

Nguyen Dynasty

During the Nguyen dynasty, all the aforementioned vestiges were leveled to build the Nguyen architecture. For the first time, architectural vestiges with pillar foundations of the Nguyen dynasty appeared in the area of Kinh Thien power which was built quite in scale and carefully.

Architectural monuments of the Nguyen dynasty

Relics of the Nguyen Dynasty are all kinds of bricks and tiles, a little pottery.

Tile for lotus nose in Nguyen dynasty

Outstanding value of the excavation and research in 2019

Hoang Thanh Thang Long in particular and Imperial Citadel of Thang Long in general is a large, rich and complex relic, the identification of Hoang Thanh’s architecture cannot be overnight, but it must be periodic, meticulous and detailed. step. Every year, two research institutions of the same scientific community are fully aware of the appearance of the relic in the excavated area. The research results in 2019 have brought new insights and outstanding values:

The first:

The discovery of a solid brick sewer in Dai La period proved to the hypothesis that the central area of Dai La citadel was still in the central area of Hoang Thanh Thang Long. This observation is important because it will help us to understand the scale of Dai La citadel. Understanding the scale of Dai La citadel will help us learn the scale of Thang Long citadel in the Ly dynasty.

The second:

The architectures of the Dinh – Tien Le, Ly and Tran dynasties continued to be distributed in the area behind the Kinh Thien Palace, proving that the centrality was quite uniform across all excavated sites in the Central area. and is similar to the whole area 18 Hoang Dieu and Vuon Hong.

During the Ly period, the huge relic of terracotta dragon statues (somewhat larger than the dragon statue in the 18th Hoang Dieu area) showed that there might be large-scale and important architecture in the Ly Dynasty here.

In the Tran period, the architectural vestiges here were small-scale. The heavily burnt (ash) phenomenon, reminiscent of the history of wars in the late 14th century, caused the city to burn several times to ashes.

The third: In the Le So and Le Trung Hung dynasties, many marks appeared, suggesting many new hypotheses.

In the Le So period, there were 2 traces of the foundation, 1 architectural vestige with column foundation. These vestiges reflect the Le So period where many important works were built here (traces of soil in red brick color and traces of background strips decorated with lemon flowers are carefully reinforced). Architecture with columnar foundation running in the North-South direction can be a corridor-style architecture similar to the vestiges of the corridor in the West of Doan Mon discovered in 2013-2014. This suggests that the main architectural space of Kinh Thien Palace in Le So dynasty behind the Kinh Thien background is somewhat narrower than the front part.

The Le Trung Hung period formed an architectural complex with large pillar foundation in the West and garden architecture in the East. The architecture with a columnar foundation is likely a 5-room, 2-leaned architecture on the Ngu Dao axis straight to Doan Mon- Kinh Thien. It is very likely that this is the “gate” architecture of another palace district in the Central area. According to ancient bibliographies and ancient maps, after the main area of ​​Kinh Thien Palace is Can Chanh power area. So if this is the gate architecture, this is the relic that marks the beginning of the second most important architectural area on the central axis: It is the Can Chanh power area, the workplace of the Emperor and the Le court. Trung Hung.

Of course, this is just the first scientific assumption. In the future, when possible, we will test this hypothesis.

The excavation in 2019 has uncovered many new monuments evoking new perceptions, contributing to an important step in understanding the appearance of the Kinh Thien Main Hall, thereby further increasing the value of the Heritage. World Center Hoang Thanh Thang Long.