The tribune of Xa Tac is situated inside the citadel, in the west of the imperial palace, belonging before to the commune of Huu Nien (afterwards phuong of Ngung Tich), and belonging to-day to the phuong of Thuan Hoa, city of Hue .
The tribune of Xa Tac is situated inside the citadel, in the west of the imperial palace, belonging before to the commune of Huu Nien (afterwards phuong of Ngung Tich), and belonging to-day to the phuong of Thuan Hoa, city of
Hue.
The cult of the genies of Xa Tac exists long since in
China and has been imported to our country at least from the Ly. Dao Duy Anh has explained the meaning of “Xa Tac” as follows in his dictionnary sino-vietnamese: “Before when a state is founded, the population must be taken into account. The population has need of land to build houses, and the tribune Xa Tac must be constructed to worship the genie of land. The population needs rice to eat, and the tribune Xa Tac must be constructed to worship the genie of agriculture. To lose the fatherland, it is to lose the Xa Tac, and the Xa Tac means the faterland”. For an agricultural country as ours, the cult of the Xa Tac suits well and is very respected.
The Xa Tac of the Nguyen in the capital Hue was constructed in the 5th year of Gia Long (1806). At the order of the king, every town and province of the country must contribute their part of clean land to construct the tribune, so the tribune of Xa Tac is the symbol of the territory of the whole country. Hence, the sacred meaning of the tribune.
Through time and historical events, the actual place of the tribune Xa Tac is almost completely destructed and now is situated in the quarter of residence of the population.
With the decision of restoring a particularly important palace site, the Center of Maintenance of Sites of the ancient capital Hue has established the papers of proposition to elevate the tribune of Xa Tac to the rank of national site, and has studied the restoration of this tribune and the ceremony of Xa Tac in the Festival of Hue 2008.
The National Museum of Vietnamese History, in coordination with the Center of Maintenance of Sites of the ancient capital Hue, has begun the study and the excavation in order to restore the tribune of Xa Tac.
After more than 2 months of working in the field, with more than 2000m2 of excavation and exploration, the excavation team has uncovered nearly the whole base and the bordering of the base of the first floor (upper floor), part of the base and the borderings, east and west, of the second floor (lower floor), the stairs leading to the upper and lower floor, the vestiges of the La Thanh walls, the original borderings of the lac Xa Tac…
From the vestiges and the remains found in the excavation pits, confronted with the documents about the tribune of Xa Tac, on can, as a first step, determine the extent of the tribune, the plan of which is rectangular (213×175m), and is surrounded by the system of La Thanh walls constructed with basalt.
The upper flor is situated in the central part, the floor is square with 30,34m of side, covered with many layers of clear yellow clay mixed with sand, of grey yellow clay and grey green plastical clay, superposed and well delimited from up to down. The corners and the parts near the borderings are strengthened with layers of laterite and yellow sand. The foundations are built with massive bricks, of colour clear red (30×14×5cm), the mortar is the traditional shell mortar.
The lower floor has an area (74×74m), a floor covered with yellow and grey yellow clay, the borderings of the foundations are built with violet and grey basalt.
The bordering of lake Xa Tac is built with colored basalt with a technics and a structure analogous to the bordering of Ngu Ha, of lakes and ponds… of the capitral Hue. The lake Xa Tac is rectangular, about 175m long from east to west (equivalent to the distance between east La Thanh and the west of the tribune Xa Tac), and about 71m from north to south.
In the excavation pit, we have uncovered a pedestal of stele, carved in a stone of Thanh Hoa, 1,02m long, 0,74m wide, 0,43m thick, with a rectangular hole in the center, of dimensions 44,5cm×23,5cm to fix the stele. Researchers of Hue think that it is used to plant the stele “Thai Xa chi than”, which is buried in the soil of the upper floor (?) but no document on this is to be found. We need then a certain time more of careful research to obtain an acceptable answer.
At the end of March 2008, the National Museum of Vietnamese History and the Center of Maintenance of Sites of the Capital Hue have organized a meeting of preliminary report on the results of exploration and excavation of the tribune of Xa Tac. The meeting has highly estimated the results of the work of the archaeologists of the National Museum of Vietnamese History this last time. The discovered traces and the results of measures show that the extent, the dimensions and the construction technics of the tribune of Xa Tac are conform with the data given by the real estate ingenieur Ngo Nam in his map (Binh Do - Xa Tac) realized on the 20th of March 1963. Thus, the results of these explorations and excavation have furnished precise documents to serve the restoration of the tribune of Xa Tac. In the same time, the meeting has proposed a project of transfer of all the population living actually in the territory of the site, especially the population living in the northern sector, in the place of the upper and lower floors, in order to continue the archaeological exploration in research of more scientific data to serve the project of restoration of the tribune of Xa Tac and the immaterial values linked with this sacred site.
Hiền-Lâm- Cư