Archaeology Magazine - May/June 2013 - 27

many times,” Le said “and the builders often reused material.”
As an example, she pointed to a low wall dating to the fifteenth
century. One brick in the wall, however, bears the name of a
thirteenth-century army unit and the name of the workshop
where it was manufactured, all written in Chinese characters.
The brick’s original placement remains a mystery.
Similarly, Vietnamese history is difficult to separate from
that of the many cultures and peoples in the region. Today the
country extends from China’s southern border to the Gulf of
Thailand and includes more than 50 ethnic groups speaking
dozens of languages. To the south, for example, along the
Mekong River, are rice-farming Khmer related to today’s Cam-

thought, calligraphy, and mandarin administration, as well as
Chinese architecture, manners, and tableware.
This Chinese influence sets the Viet people apart from
other societies of Southeast Asia, which mixed their traditional beliefs with those brought by Indian traders starting
in the early centuries a.d., as evidenced by such sites as the
great Khmer complex of Angkor Wat. Despite frequently
rebelling against Chinese rule, the Viets also absorbed more
of China’s high culture than their neighbors did, and were less
influenced by Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim traders from the
Indian Ocean. The new archaeological evidence from Thang
Long demonstrates that the heart of Viet power can be traced
back to that strong but ambivalent relationship with China.

nTiL The CurrenT eXCaVaTionS Began, the majority

A brick depicting Buddhist architecture found on the site of
Thang Long dates to between the 11th and 13th centuries.

bodians, while in the long neck between the Red and Mekong
rivers are the Cham, a trading people concentrated along the
coast. In the mountains, many smaller and more isolated ethnicities maintain their distinct cultures, clothing, and tongues.
The heartland of the Viet people remains the fertile region
created by the Red River, which rises in China’s Yunnan
Province and spills down rugged mountains to form a lush
alluvial plain the size of Connecticut. Much of that plain,
including Hanoi, was underwater until about 4,000 years ago.
As the waters receded, people filtered into the area. Archaeologists have found enormous bronze drums and axes on hills
in Hanoi’s vicinity dating to the sixth century B.C. There is
little knowledge of the origins or ways of life of their makers,
though historians believe they practiced animist beliefs within
a matriarchal society, lacked a writing system and draft animals,
and used metals sparingly.
By the early centuries B.C., however, the area emerged as a
center of agricultural wealth. A dozen miles north of today’s
Hanoi, Viet rulers built a citadel at Co Loa in the middle of the
third century B.C. that boasted massive moats and ramparts, a
sign of increasing wealth that was a result of well-engineered
and productive rice fields. That prosperity drew the attention
of an expanding Han Dynasty in China, which invaded the
region in 111 B.C. The invasion marked the start of 1,000 years
of Chinese domination that introduced Taoist and Confucian
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of what was known about the royal court of ancient
Vietnam came from contemporary chronicles written by both Vietnamese and Chinese officials to keep track of
events. But these documents are mostly administrative texts
and provide only an occasional glimpse into day-to-day life. One
such chronicle says that a Viet rebel built a wooden fort close to
what is today Thang Long in a.d. 545. He was soon defeated by
a Chinese general who then chose the spot as his empire’s primary center in Vietnam. Chinese troops constructed a stone fort
nearly four miles in circumference in a.d. 621, in the early days
of the Tang Dynasty. In the succeeding century, the texts say, the
fort was destroyed and rebuilt three times. In the late eighth century a.d., the renovated citadel’s walls rose 23 feet, three gates
pierced the fort, and the chronicles claim the settlement could
house 300,000 Chinese soldiers. A century after that, on the
order of a Chinese governer named Gao Pian, a city called Dai
La was built on and around the same site by turning creeks and
A coin with ancient Chinese letters, found
in a kitchen pit, and a ceramic celadon
fragment are among the first pieces of
evidence ever uncovered of Dai La, a city
built by the Chinese in the ninth century
a.d. on the future site of Thang Long.

marshes into usable
waterways lined with
palaces, temples, and
pagodas.
For the past decade,
archaeologists have been
recovering physical remains from the site of
Thang Long that have begun to
tell a much richer story about the use and importance of the
site from almost the moment when that first wooden fort was
constructed. Examining terracotta styles has made it possible
to identify levels that date as far back as the seventh century
a.d. According to Le, the excavations have uncovered the
first large-scale archaeological evidence of the ninth-century
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Archaeology Magazine - May/June 2013

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