Exhibition Hall of Southern Song Site
Glass-floored gallery over an excavated Song Dynasty imperial road, its stone paving stacked beneath centuries of later streets.
This guide to the Exhibition Hall of Southern Song Site in Hangzhou opens with a construction puzzle: how do you roof over a road that is eight hundred years old without ever touching it. It traces back to March 2008, when diggers on Zhongshan Road cut through five stacked layers of street, from Republican cobbles down to Qing, Ming and Yuan paving, before reaching stone worn smooth by feet from the Southern Song era. You'll hear why that lowest road was reserved for the emperor alone, and what an earlier nearby dig turned up beside it. Stand at the glass and look down at the real stone beneath your feet.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.