Centered at The Palaces or Ancestral Temples?——A study on the Layout of Palaces and Ancestral Temples Built before the Eastern Han Dynasty

This paper studies the layout of Chinese ancient capitals including that of the Western Zhou Dynasty.It is found that initially the king's official palaces were subordinate to the ancestral temples.As the authority of the Kings rose,palaces built in the west(or southwest)part of the capitals on the basis of earlier para-palaces was gradually gaining prominence.This kind of practice was maintained from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Western Han Dynasty.According to the records found in The Artificers'Record in the Ritual of Zhou,palaces placed in the middle was not part of the social institutions in the Zhou Dynasty. However,due to their physical characteristics and historical contingency, they later exerted a great influence on the form of China's urban construction.