Archaeology Magazine - May/June 2013 - 28

city of Dai La. Thus far the team has uncovered 18 structures
dating to between the seventh and early eleventh centuries,
the era of Chinese domination in Vietnam. The archaeologists
discovered that all the buildings had wooden frames, some
with rectangular or T-shaped floor plans, and roofs held up by
columns that sat in deep postholes. They also found thousands
of pieces of wooden tools and furniture littering the floors.The
square bricks used to pave the floors were often decorated with
lotus or crocodile motifs that appear to combine both Chinese
and Vietnamese mythologies and are just a few of the finds
that hint at a city that was primarily Chinese in style but also
incorporated Vietnamese elements.
Dai La’s inhabitants enjoyed surprisingly good infrastructure for the period and region. They drew water from at least
17 wells, and multiple drainage ditches and pipes made of both
brick and terracotta channeled waste and runoff away from
settled areas. Le remarks that this demonstrates sophisticated
planning and engineering in a region long thought to have

In the remains of a foundation trench, the team found a
large fragment of a stone dragon dating to the Ly Dynasty
(a.d. 1009–1225). Dragons were symbols of royal power.

lagged behind China and other contemporary urban societies.
One well dates to as early as the eighth century a.d., and the
bricks used to repair the upper part suggest it was used into
the eleventh century. Analysis of faunal remains from one of
the citadel’s kitchens shows that at least the elite residents of
Dai La ate well—their diet included buffalo meat and a wide
variety of seafood, including fish and mollusks.
In a.d. 968, the Vietnamese won their independence from
China after a fierce struggle, and the Chinese soldiers and
administrators who had dominated the region for a thousand
years returned north to their homeland. This newly formed
Vietnamese nation, the capital of which was at Hoa Lu, was
called Dai Viet. The written record is silent on what took
place at Dai La between 968 and 1010, when Thang Long was
officially made the capital of the new state. But archaeologists
have found the remains of 13 small square and rectangular
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wooden buildings that appear to date from these years and
are clearly different in style from the previous Chinese period.
Columns, for example, rested on wooden or stone plinths
instead of in postholes. In addition, archaeologists have found
tiles decorated with images of ducks or the sun—more Viet in
their look than Chinese. Though the evidence is slim so far, it
suggests that the newly independent Viet people asserted their
homegrown architectural style and symbols immediately after
the departure of their northern foes.

n 1010, King Ly Thai To issued the edict that moved
the capital from the more inaccessible site of Hoa Lu,
located some 60 miles south, to what would become
Thang Long, not solely as a result of his dragon vision. He
explained to his courtiers that his choice also rested on practical grounds. The site, he noted, “is sufficiently vast and flat,
the ground sufficiently high and open” and “everything there
is flourishing and prosperous.” The king made no mention of
a Chinese-designed city in his royal edict, perhaps wanting to
make clear that this would be a new Viet capital rather than
a modified Chinese garrison town.
All across the Red River plain little remains today of the
first two centuries of Viet independence after their millennium-long subjugation by the Chinese. But small finds at Thang
Long hint at the sophistication of the young capital. Artists
with exquisite craftsmanship created intricate terracotta
images of dragons, phoenixes, and sacred pipal leaves that
were used to decorate palace roofs. The phoenix, found in
many cultures, is associated with grace and virtue in Vietnam
and appears to be the decoration of choice in the rooms of
the queen, while the dragon represents the king. From India
to China, pipal leaves are a symbol of the Buddha.
The early Thang Long palaces were clearly a regional effort.
Stamped bricks mention, collectively, as many as 100 villages
in the Red River area, showing that construction involved
more than just local craftsmen. What’s not clear, says Le, is
whether the villagers relocated to Thang Long or shipped the
bricks they made at home to the capital. Archaeologists also
unearthed the skeletons of two children near a central pillar
of a palace. Such sacrifices, meant to ward off evil spirits, were
common in early China but unheard of at this late date. Until
the last century, animals often were sacrificed in this way in
rural Vietnam, a reminder of an animist past.
In the years after the founding of Dai Viet, the Viets began
to spar not just with China, but also with the Cham to the
south and the Khmer to the west. Starting in the seventh
century, Champa (the kingdom of the Cham people) developed into a regional power thanks to flourishing international
trade routes along its lengthy coast on the South China Sea.
And the rise of the formidable Khmer Empire, beginning in
the ninth century, sparked frequent clashes as well. Unlike the
Viets, who continued to use Chinese characters, administrative methods, and manners, the Cham and Khmer preferred
an alphabet based on the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit
and mixed their traditions more with those of India. “War was
omnipresent,” says French historian Anne-Valerie Schweyer,

ArchAeology • May/June 2013

Archaeology Magazine - May/June 2013

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